A statement from the organisation reads: “We are a small charity that is fiercely independent of government funding, and we have operated exclusively in Scotland since 1979, but without your help we might not be able to do it for much longer. Without additional funding, we may be unable to continue our vital campaigning work beyond the end of the year.”

Highlights over the past year include:

• pressing for the prison population to be reduced, now that it’s back to 92 per cent of its pre-pandemic level and 6 out of 15 prisons are still over-capacity
• working with partner organisations such as Amnesty International and the Human Rights Consortium Scotland to raise awareness of prison conditions and to push for this to be included as part of a public inquiry into the effects of Covid-19
• raising questions in Parliament about increasing rates of remand, particularly amongst children
• analysing and drawn attention to human rights concerns in HMIPS Liaison Visit inspections, meeting regularly with HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland
• examining legislation and formally questioned the Scottish Government’s lack of scrutiny in passing a negative instrument to extend prison regime restrictions
• supporting calls for a reduction in the outstanding number of unpaid work hours under existing Community Payback Orders, whilst raising concerns to the Justice Committee as to the fairness and validity of the exclusions
• submitting Freedom of Information requests to ascertain waiting list lengths for offender behaviour programmes which are instrumental to progression, and have been invited to input into a forthcoming thematic review
• writing articles on prisoner voting and on children being held in police custody.

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