Maggie Chapman
Scottish Green Party · Scotland
“Our prison system is not working. Like so many other institutions, including our national health service and our schools, prisons reflect the society that they serve. That society is deeply unfair and profoundly unequal. Schools struggle to help young people to learn and thrive, as too many children arrive in the classroom hungry.”
Scottish Parliament25 June 2026Source ↗
“Overall levels of crime are about half what they were in 1991. However, we have left prisons, just like our schools and NHS, to pick up the pieces of failures elsewhere in society.”
Scottish Parliament25 June 2026Source ↗
“Far too often, we take people who have already been failed by society and place them in institutions that fail them again—institutions that are increasingly unable to guarantee basic standards of welfare, dignity and human rights.”
Scottish Parliament25 June 2026Source ↗
“For those who have committed less serious crimes and are serving shorter sentences, it makes no sense at all to spend, as the motion states, £52,000 per year on prison, given that we know that, in many cases, prison will not help them to stop reoffending.”
Scottish Parliament25 June 2026Source ↗
“With greater use of effective alternatives to custody, and sentencing that follows the evidence, we will need fewer but better resourced prisons that can genuinely support rehabilitation and reintegration. That approach is working right now in other countries.”
Scottish Parliament25 June 2026Source ↗
“It is no surprise, then, that prisons often perform worse than alternatives when it comes to reducing reoffending and preventing future harm. Short sentences for non-violent crimes, in particular, for which there are the clearest alternatives, result in some of the highest rates of prisoners leaving prison and coming into conflict with th…”
Scottish Parliament25 June 2026Source ↗