§ Mr. DalyellTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, pursuant to his letter of 16 October 1996, AAB 03104.106, what assessment he has made of the programmes for sex offenders in prisons cited in his letter. [10826]
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonA formal evaluation of the sexual offender programme at Peterhead was carried out by the social work research centre at the university of Stirling. It was commissioned to provide insight into the issues associated with establishing an intervention programme within an institutional setting; to assess the impact of establishing the programme on the prisoners and staff of HMP Peterhead; and to explore the feasibility of such programmes in other establishments in the Scottish prison system. The study was not able to consider the programme's impact on reoffending, as an insufficient number of prisoners have so far been released back into the community to allow any meaningful conclusions to be drawn. The report will be published shortly.
The operation of the programme at Peterhead has also been assessed on two occasions by Professor William Marshall, of Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, who is one of the world's leading authorities on the treatment of sexual offenders.
Plans are in hand to commission an 18-month evaluation of the programme at Barlinnie. The aim will be to assess the impact of the programme on the attitudes and behaviour of prisoners participating; to examine the links between the prison-based programme and equivalent 745W community-based provision for monitoring, supporting and counselling sexual offenders on release back into the community; and to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme in preventing those sexual offenders who have been on the programme from committing further sexual offences. It is expected that the contract to undertake this work will be issued in March or April.