Prison Based Social Work
Perth & Kinross Council is responsible for social work
services in:
- HMP/ YOI Perth, which includes Friarton Hall Young Offenders'
Institution
- The Open Estate, which includes HMP Castle Huntly and HMP
Noranside
Social workers based in the prisons encourage prisoners to
address their offending behaviour through appropriate interventions
focused on the nature of their offence and their offending
history.
Our core tasks :
- Providing reports for the Parole Board and Prisoner Tribunals
to assist them in making a decision about the possible release of a
prisoner on any kind of licence.
- Completing risk assessments to determine a prisoner's level of
risk of re-offending and their risk of harm to the public. Risk
assessments are prepared for all reports which go to the Parole
Board, Prisoner Tribunals, Integrated Case Management Case
Conferences, Risk Manager and Progression Risk Management
Groups.
- Liaising with criminal justice services and other relevant
services in the community during a prisoner's sentence, and in
preparation for their release.
- Undertaking individual programmes of work with prisoners to
address their offending behaviour if their needs cannot be met
through Scottish Prison Service interventions.
A prisoner will be allocated a prison based social worker if
they are to be supervised by a community based criminal justice
social worker on their release from prison:
- Sentence of 4 years and over (parole, non-parole licence)
- Life sentence (life licence)
- Supervised release order
- Extended sentence
- Convicted of any sexual offence
- Recalled to prison due to previous breach of licence
conditions.
Following their admission to prison a prisoner's allocated
prison based social worker will arrange to meet with them to
explain the social work role in prison and ensure the prisoner
understands the implication of their licence conditions.
Duty service
We also provide a duty service to all prisoners.
