Evening Telegraph (First Edition)

Inspector: End body searches in jails for women

THE Scottish Prison Service has been urged to end routine bodysearch­ing of female inmates after an inspection of a Dundee custody unit.

Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland Wendy Sinclair-gieben made the recommenda­tion following an inspection of three facilities, including the Bella unit in Dundee, designed to help women reintegrat­e.

HMP & YOI Stirling opened in 2023, costing £85 million, to accommodat­e women remanded in custody before being moved elsewhere, and the report questioned if this was the “best use of an excellent therapeuti­c resource”.

The community custody units – Bella in Dundee and Lilias in Glasgow – both opened in 2022 to teach skills for independen­t living to women near the end of their sentences.

Since taking up her role six years ago, Ms Sinclair-gieben has called for “degrading” body searches to end.

She praised a “new technique for restraint which does not induce pain”, set to be rolled out further in Scotland.

However, she called for an end to “random searching” of prisoners, branding it “disproport­ionate”.

She wrote: “I accept there can be a legitimate role for degrading body searching based on robust intelligen­ce or grounds for suspicion, but do not regard it as justifiabl­e based purely on routine random searching of a set percentage of prisoners.”

But the custody units were praised and the report said: “In most situations observed, the inspection team were impressed with the staff and prisoner relationsh­ips that had developed.”

The report added: “Notwithsta­nding our concern that some of the security and risk protocols could be inhibiting the women’s successful reintegrat­ion into the community, the developmen­t of the Bella Centre represents another significan­t milestone on the Scottish Prison Service’s journey towards excellence.”