Former prison officers could be used to mentor troubled young Scottish men outside the jail system in an attempt to reduce Scotland’s rising prison population, according to Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill.
MacAskill says the officers, and other older men like joiners and other tradesmen, could provide strong male leadership for young men who have never had such a role model. He argues that such men may prove more effective than traditional social workers in steering at-risk young males away from crime.
“We are throwing more and more people into prison than frankly, is the ability of the prison service, which serves us very, very well, to cope with. They are very professional, the staff of the SPS, but they are simply having to contain and corral people and cannot work with people.
“I look forward to the day when the skills that our prison officers have can actually be used outwith the prison as well as in the prison because actually, when we are dealing with some hard to handle young men, in particular where the bulk of our offending comes from, some of the best people and I don’t mean this in any disparaging way, are not necessarily the best educated, fresh-faced from college with a social work qualification, it’s actually an experienced prison officer,” he said.
Arguing that such officers “speak the lingo and know how to deal with these people”, MacAskill said they would be ideally placed to be involved in “mentoring for people who’ve had no adult role model or adult male role model that you could model yourself on.”
He continued: “Our prison officers do a great job and I would like to see some of them and others, whether it’s a former joiner who wants to do other things, or whatever, involved out in the community offering these young men good, strong, male role models.”
Peter Crory, national general secretary of the YMCA in Scotland, is supportive of MacAskill’s plan but warned that earlier action may be more effective.
“The critical time for a young person is when a crisis lands and the way in which they react to that crisis. If there is no support in place, then that can be difficult. We try and build relationships with families at the P6-P7 time, because it is easier to build the relationship then.
“If we don’t have those relationships in place when the crisis breaks at about 14, as it often does, then it can be very difficult to step in,” he says.
Crory also warned that volunteers dealing with troubled young men may not have sufficient training to deal with the complex issues – and dangers – posed by such individuals.
“We have to very careful with what we expect from volunteers. The training level required can be very high.”
Readers have left 2 comments. 1. Prison officers can be role models
John Mathieson, Unregistered Dear sir,
What an excellent idea! I am about to retire after 28 years in the Scottish Prison Service working in a variety of roles. Latterly I worked in Edinburgh prison and, in addition to other roles, was responsible for our population of remand prisoners amongst whom were a group of young offenders aged between 16-21 years. As part of an MSc in Criminal Justice I was undertaking with Napier College, I wrote a dissertation called "Sixteen and seventeen-year-olds in prison: Are they society’s scapegoats?" This was an action research study of twenty-one randomly selected remand prisoners aged between 16 and 18 years of age. The study examined the critical risk factors in their background; the response of Scotland’s Criminal Justice System to their criminality compared to that in England and Wales and analysed the possible alternatives to imprisonment for those under 18. One of the critical risk factors that emerged during my research was that in almost every case there was a lack of a suitable role model and any sort of strong leadership or guidance in their lives (the dissertation is available on request).
2. Prison officers can be role models
Scott, Unregistered I totally agree about College graduates not being the best people to deal with Young people with challenging and complex needs. The younger person graduating from University doesn't possess the life skills needed to really engage and challenge these young people. A perfect mix would be to send older men to university to be on par with younger graduates to start to deal with the problems we are facing.
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