The Scottish Government have been blasted for presiding over a “crisis” in prisons after it predicted that capacity levels would hit dangerous levels later this year. The estimation comes as SNP ministers face questions over their failure to build new jails on time and budget, allowing other premises to deteriorate.
In a new publication posted on Tuesday, Humza Yousaf’s administration predicted that the prison population could rise between January and June 2024, with a projected range of 7,350 and 8,450 for the average daily capacity in June 2024. This could mean a huge rise of more than 500 cons between now (7,900) and then.
It means there are only 50 criminals below the 8,500 limit, which prison chief Teresa Medhurst claims should lead to a mass release of offenders. During the early days of the Covid pandemic, the Scottish Government used emergency legislation to release 348 prisoners early, with Scottish Tory justice spokesman Russell Findlay claiming that almost half of them committed crimes after they were let free.
Safety fears for prison officers were also raised, as many premises are understaffed and over-capacity, with a number of them dating back to the Victorian era, including Greenock and Barlinnie. The SNP Executive have failed to build new jails in Inverness and Glasgow, as they have been delayed for years and are massively over budget.
The Scottish Prison Population Projections claims that “the remand population will remain stable between January 2024 and June 2024. If it decreases because of enhanced monthly case conclusions, this may contribute to an increased sentenced population as more individuals transition from remand.” It highlights some alarming statistics, showing the numbers of cons in jail “rose substantially” in 2023, “especially between 1st February 2023 and 1st October 2023 when it increased by over 500 from 7,400 to almost 7,950 and went above 8000 on a total of seven days in November and 2023.
Scottish Prison Service chief executive Teresa Medhurst claimed that if the numbers rose above 8500, it would trigger a crisis. She went on to say that the Scottish Government would need to consider releasing hundreds of prisoners with no restrictions placed on them like it did during Covid.
One of the primary duties of any Government is to protect the public, whether from external or internal threats. The SNP is failing, as it has in so many other areas, to do this. We have seen under sentencing guidelines that they brought in such ridiculous outcomes in court as rapists and hit-and-run murderers walk away from court scot-free due to their age.
Also, under the SNP government, the number of full-time equivalent police officers serving in Scotland hit a 15-year low at only 16,363 as of 31st December 2023. In 2013, when the SNP formed the ill-conceived single-force Police Scotland, there were 17,496 officers.
Police Scotland also announced in 2023, due to financial pressures, that they will stop investigating some “minor” crimes, and it has been acknowledged that some not-so-minor investigations have been put on hold or halted due to a lack of funds. Ignoring so-called “minor” crimes can only lead to a rise in more serious crime; this has been shown the world over, and it was only the targeting of such “minor” crimes with a zero-tolerance approach by New York in 1994 that reversed that cities descent into lawlessness and decay.
These failures in the courts and policing disproportionately affect the poorest in our society, the very people the SNP claim they are dedicated to making life better for.
A mass release of prisoners early would be the final straw. The SNP have broken the contract they have with the people of Scotland to protect them, their homes and their livelihoods. It is time that the people of Scotland took the SNP to task over this failure and the many other shortcomings in policy that the SNP are responsible for and punished them at the ballot box in the upcoming elections.
