The Scottish prison population reached a record high of 8,430 inmates, officially exceeding its designed capacity by 600.
Despite SNP methods to prevent this problem with the emergency release of 800 prisoners last year and a proposed 1,000 more this year, overcrowding has persisted.
A recent report from The Prison Officers’ Association (POA), which gathered data from 400 out of their 4,000 members, found that 70 per cent of Prison Officers thought this year’s overcrowding was the worst they’d seen in their career, and 80 per cent believed it was impacting the physical and mental health of prisoners, alongside staff
Several Prison Officers were quoted in the report, with one claiming that with the combination of a lack of staff and an increase in prisoners, the system is “a ticking time bomb”
Another said, “If there is one thing I would ask policymakers to do to improve Scotland’s prisons, it’s listen to those working on the frontline”
On the impact of taxpayers, the Scottish Prison Service has revealed that in 2023/24, the average cost per prisoner was £47,140, a near 30 per cent increase from 2016/17
Scottish Labour and Conservative spokespeople alike are complaining about the SNP’s handling of the prison overpopulation crisis.
As Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Liam Keir claimed, “the crisis in our prisons is entirely the SNP’s own making”
“We warned ministers from the start that the early-release programme was a desperate, sticker-plaster idea that was doomed to fail, yet they plan several more rounds of it in the coming months as Scotland’s prisons burst at the seams.”
“Royal Coat-of-Arms on Edinburgh Law Courts – geograph.org.uk – 2050359” by Stanley Howe is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.