National Preventive Mechanism Fourth Annual Report 2012–13 Prison monitors in Scotland The advantages of a layered detention monitoring system – whereby lay monitors and professional inspectorates complement each other with different approaches to monitoring the same institutions – were set out in the NPM 2011–12 annual report. In 2011, the Scottish Government announced that it was going to abolish prison visiting committees. The NPM urged the Scottish Government to ensure that these proposals would not reduce protection for prisoners, and took into account OPCAT obligations. In response, the Scottish Government commissioned a review of proposals for prison monitoring, including their compatibility with OPCAT, to be conducted by Professor Andrew Coyle, Professor of Prison Studies at King’s College, London. This review, published in January 2013, set out specific recommendations to ensure that future monitoring arrangements would be independent12. It recommended that: The UK NPM was supportive of the Coyle review and urged the Scottish Government to consider implementing the recommendations made in order to ensure OPCAT compliance. • visiting committees be replaced by a new system of voluntary independent prison monitors, to be appointed through a transparent process, for specified periods and with a clearly defined role, with appropriate training, resources and support provided from sources other than the Scottish Prison Service • monitors for each prison should submit an annual report to Scottish Ministers for publication • a council of independent prison monitors should be formed, composed of one monitor from each prison • visiting committees for the nine sets of legalised police cells should be abolished and their functions transferred to independent custody visitors. The Scottish Government proposed that to implement the new model, HMCIPS should employ four part-time prison monitors, supported by lay monitors, attached to each prison and representing the community. In overseeing the monitoring function, HMCIPS would be supported by an advisory group made up of key stakeholders from the justice sector and would provide guidance on monitoring, appointments and training. The Scottish Government responded with its intentions to reform the independent monitoring of prisons to ensure the best outcomes, while meeting OPCAT obligations. Its decision was that Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland (HMCIPS) should oversee independent monitoring of prisons in the future. This, it affirmed, would provide an opportunity to integrate inspection and monitoring effectively, in a way that preserves the distinct (though complementary) functions of both. The Scottish Government also pointed to enhanced national leadership, and impact and profile of monitoring, given the Inspector’s long-established independence and access to Ministers, Parliament and the media, as benefits of the new arrangement. Pilot study on recording the use of force by the Metropolitan Police Service Following a request by the Ministerial Board on Deaths in Custody, the Independent Custody Visiting Scheme in London negotiated with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) for its visitors to conduct a one-month pilot survey to look at how effectively use of force 12 The Scottish Government. Review of Proposals to Improve Arrangements for Independent Monitoring of Prisons (The Coyle Review), January 2013. At: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0041/00414197.pdf 18