Murphy Calls for Prison Plan Veto

The Scottish Government should veto plans to replace Scotland's "violent'' Cornton Vale women's prison with a new "super-prison'' and create smaller community facilities instead, according to Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy. Mr Murphy has outlined a raft of new justice policies to take to the general election and beyond to the next Holyrood election in 2016, including a reform of the early release of prisoners and a review of the SNP's offensive behaviour at football law. The Scottish Prison Service plans to create a new 300-cell facility at HMP Inverclyde to replace Cornton Vale, but Mr Murphy said it should think again. "There are about 430 women currently in Scotland's prisons,'' he said at a Scottish Parliament Journalists' Association lunch. "When a dad goes to prison, in 90% of the cases the kids will stay with the mum. When a mum goes to prison, one in five of the kids will stay with the dad. "Children who had parents who have went to prison are themselves three times more likely to go to prison when they are an adult. "Of course, some of these mums have more than one kid and as a consequence there are more children in Scotland with a mum in prison than there are women in prison. "A woman that goes to prison is three times more likely to re-offend than if they had gone through another course in terms of rehabilitation or a non-custodial approach. "I think it's time for the Scottish Government - and I want to signal that this is the approach we will take - to think again about building one major super-prison in Inverclyde to replace Cornton Vale. "Cornton Vale is the most violent prison in Scotland and to simply plan to build a modern version of Cornton Vale is planning for failure. "Instead, I would like us to have smaller prisons. "Of course, you would need to have a centre for the most difficult, violent, serious female prisoners but the best place for some of these women who are in prison isn't in a super-prison. "I think we can have community justice centres much closer to population centres, where the mum maintains a contact with the wider family network and where it is easier for the children to come and visit, and where there is a genuine sense of rehabilitation.'' Mr Murphy has also asked his justice spokesman Hugh Henry to conduct a review of early release. "While you can have the argument that life should mean life, I've asked Hugh to look at to what extent could time mean time,'' he said. "There needs to be more honesty in the sentencing policy so there isn't an expectation that no-one really means the sentence that is handed down and it will never be served.'' The Celtic FC season ticket holder attacked the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act, which has been particularly unpopular with some Old Firm supporters, insisting it was a kneejerk "something must be done'' response by the SNP. "It's Scotland's equivalent of the Dangerous Dogs Act, which was done in haste to deal with a genuine problem but done in a pretty dreadful way,'' he said. "No-one should doubt the existence of sectarianism in Scotland, but no-one should believe that that football act is a suitable response to it. "In terms of freedom of expression, I think this SNP Government have gone about it the wrong way in terms of dealing with a very real problem of sectarianism. "The law isn't: 'Thou may say whatever you want unless it offends my sense of good taste'. "As long as people don't breach the law of incitement to racial hatred and any of the other established laws of our land, then we've all got to tolerate things that we find unacceptable.''