Adult female offenders in Glasgow are to be given an alternative to prison as plans for the opening of Scotland’s first 'time out' centre were announced by the Scottish executive’s deputy justice minister Dr Richard Simpson.
The £2.6 million centre will provide 14 residential beds and places on a day care basis where adult female offenders will be helped by social work and health professionals being offered detoxification, advocacy and counselling.
Support will be provided to the women after they stop attending the centre, and a key role of the project will be to engage other services such as education, sexual health counselling, addiction rehabilitation and employment.
The time out centre will be seen as a welcome alternative to Scotland’s only female gaol, Cornton Vale, which has been beset by problems such as a high suicide rate.
Jim Coleman, deputy leader of Glasgow council, said that many women get caught up in a "roundabout" of drugs and prostitution, prison, re-offending and prison. Coleman said: "This is the first serious attempt to take women out of that loop and out of the criminal justice system."
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