Handling of Inmates in Solitary Confinement

Scottish Prisons Criticised Over Handling of Inmates in Solitary Confinement

Inspectorate calls for urgent improvements, particularly in the treatment of prisoners with mental health problems, Scotland’s prisons are repeatedly breaching the human rights of inmates put in solitary confinement, particularly those with severe mental health problems, the prisons inspectorate has said. Prisons are routinely failing to provide segregated inmates with at least two hours of human contact a day, are using segregation to “contain” inmates with severe mental health issues who need specialist care, and are failing to properly reintegrate troubled prisoners, it found.

In an unusually critical report, Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, the chief prisons inspector for Scotland, said the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) and NHS Scotland had to make urgent improvements in their handling of prisoners in solitary confinement.

“The combination of poor environment and limited stimuli in segregation units risk a stark deterioration in prisoners’ mental health,” her report said. “Many of the prisoners we interviewed had self‐harmed, some had previously attempted suicide, and a few had witnessed fellow prisoners taking their own lives.”

She said the poor conditions in nearly all Scotland’s prisons were a clear breach of the UK’s legal obligations under human rights treaties, including the United Nations’ Mandela rules. Those require a minimum of two hours of meaningful human interaction for all prisoners in solitary confinement.
Read more: Severin Carrell , Guardian, https://tinyurl.com/3j4ba4j3