Feminist campaigner and social worker Maggie Mellon makes the case against the Scottish Government's 'Named Person' scheme SCOTLAND, like the rest of the UK and much of Europe, is an increasingly unequal society. Poverty and inequality are what stunt children's lives and these things cannot be tackled by caseworking the entire population of children. Instead, housing, jobs, income, education, health services and the environment are the...
Maggie Mellon: Why Scottish Women’s Aid should change course on its prisons position
Feminist campaigner Maggie Mellon explains why she believes short term prison sentences are unhelpful - even in domestic abuse cases SCOTLAND may be poised to take a big step away from having one of the highest rates of imprisonment in Europe. Eighty-four per cent of respondents in a recent government consultation favoured a presumption against short prison sentences - which basically means encouraging the courts not to hand down short jail...
Women for Indy Justice Watch Blog august 2016
In this blog, I am going to write about not just my own experience and views but also cover some of the issues that we all have encountered and the experiences of women in a number of courts. A fair hearing? Readers who have not been in a criminal court will have seen film and TV court scenes. In these the public gallery can hear everything clearly and understand it too. But its not like that at all. Those who have been in an actual court will...
How the Named Person crusade could damage the case for Scottish independence
First publish by Common Space in August 2016 Feminist campaigner and former social worker Maggie Mellon explains why she's welcoming a recent decision from the Supreme Court on the controversial Named Person law WHY has the Scottish Government allowed itself to be undone by a scheme with an Orwellian name which it never able to explain without contradicting themselves? On Thursday, the Supreme Court delivered its verdict on the case against...