UofG leads research into Scotland’s Community Custody Units for women
Published: 17 December 2025
A University of Glasgow led report has shared positive feedback on Community Custody Units for women, whilst also raising concerns and calling for reform.
A University of Glasgow led report into Community Custody Units has painted a mixed picture, with positive feedback from women about their accommodation and access to health care, while also raising concerns over staff training and how aligned the current units are with their original remit.
When HMP Lilias in Glasgow and HMP Bella in Dundee both opened in 2022, it signalled a new approach to rehabilitating and reintegrating female offenders through trauma informed, gender specific practices rather than punishment.
A research team, led by researchers at the University of Glasgow and involving colleagues from the universities of Stirling and Cambridge, spoke to 33 women living in the Community Custody Units (CCUs). They described feeling safe living there and liked having access to on-site health and social care staff and in the most part spoke positively about staff.
However, the researchers also found that the strict rules set out by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) were inhibiting the originally stated ethos of the CCUs which was to change the way that Scotland manages women in custody.
Professor Michele Burman from the University of Glasgow and who led the research team based at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, said: “There is a real danger that HMP Lilias and Bella have become ‘mini prisons’ because they have retained many of the features of more traditional prisons and are not the radical departure that was first envisaged.
“Where we might have seen strong relationship building between staff and the women living in these units, we saw there was a constant fear of having community access withdrawn, or of being returned to closed prison conditions which meant that women withheld issues of concern from officers.
“We also noted that body searches were still being carried out which makes developing trust difficult, especially if women have already experienced trauma. There was also a lack of purposeful activity with limited access to life skills and cooking lessons, leaving many of the women we spoke to feeling bored and disaffected.”
Dr Annie Crowley, University of Glasgow and one of the co-authors of the report, ‘Scottish Prisons Assessment and Review of Outcomes for Women (SPAROW)’ which was commissioned by the Scottish Government, said there were fewer examples of women being integrated into the community than expected.
“The biggest risk to the CCUs realising their intended vision is the lack of women being given opportunities to integrate meaningfully into the community. From our research we found there was a culture of risk averse decision-making which may be acting as a barrier to these women. “We also found throughcare services were probably better managed in closed prisons than they were in these CCUs.”
As part of the research the team spoke to 40 officers and found most demonstrated commitment to their role and a shared view about wanting to do their best for the women in their care. However, they also showed their understanding of gender-specific and trauma-informed approaches was limited and lacked depth of understanding.
During interviews with researchers CCU staff said they felt training was limited and voiced concern over the level of support provided to them by SPS senior management.
The report concluded with ten key recommendations, including more training for officers, a call for the culture of continuous improvement to be embedded in the CCU’s, investment in technology such as body scanners to replace body searches, and a review into throughcare arrangements.
First published: 17 December 2025