Right to exercise breached for young offenders – BBC News

Prison inspectors have raised concerns that inmates’ rights to exercise are being breached at Scotland main facility for young offenders.

A report said staff at HMYOI Polmont were unable to guarantee the right to one hour’s outdoor exercise per day

The problems often stemmed from potential conflict between inmates who saw each other as “enemies”, and were unable to mix with each other.

It has called for the prison service to invest in extra outdoor exercise areas.

The facility near Falkirk houses offenders aged between 16 and 21 as well as some adult female prisoners.

Under the United Nations’ “Nelson Mandela Rules” on the treatment of prisoners, they should be allowed at least an hour of daily exercise in the open air, weather permitting.

The report from HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland (HMIPS) said the difficulty with exercise timings lay partly in the number of “designated enemies” young men had within the facility, limiting the time they could enter its two outdoor exercise yards.

The report said: “Although the regime timetable indicated that all prisoners were being offered the opportunity of one hour per day in the fresh air, this was not taking place in all areas.

“Despite having to run two regimes in Blair House, women were still afforded one hour’s access to fresh air per day. However, this was not always the case in the young men’s residential areas where most areas were receiving 45 minutes per day, which is a breach of Prison Rule 87(1) and their human right.

“The number of enemies was cited as one reason for lack [of] adherence to Rule 87(1), with one example being in the under-18 section which held four children, they could not all go out together.”

The inspectors also raised “significant concern” about the “continued use” of routine body searching of women following visits from family or friends and during cell searches.

The report said this had the potential to re-traumatise women who may have previously been abused.

It urged the prison service to use technology to move permanently to “intelligence-led searching only”.

Overall, seven of the nine standards inspected, including health and wellbeing and purposeful activity, were rated as “satisfactory” and two as “generally acceptable”, which was said to reflect “a calm, stable, forward-looking prison”.

However, the inspectors said no child should be held in prison while “more therapeutic alternatives” are available, and the “very small number” being held at Polmont should be moved to more “secure care”.

“This move would bring more cells into availability, mitigating to a small degree some of the significant overcrowding concerns held by HMIPS,” it added.

An SPS spokesperson said: “This is a really positive report which praises the establishment for strongly moving forward, and the vision, purpose, energy, and direction shown by the leadership team.

“It is particularly pleasing to see staff recognised for their work in identifying people with additional needs and ensuring support is in place, and for the care and compassion they show with vulnerable individuals in ‘Talk To Me’ case conferences.”