Government is urged to boost rehab

THE Scottish Government was today urged to improve rehabilitation services to help drug offenders turn their lives around.

Parliamentary answers reveal that 70 per cent of prisoners serving time for drug-related offences have previously been in prison for a similar offence during the past ten years.

Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokeswoman Alison McInnes called for prisons and the community to work together to ensure support was in place to help offenders leave behind the scourge of drug addiction.

She said: “Drug abuse blights families and communities throughout Scotland. We all feel the corrosive impact of this devastating problem.

“We need to make sure that offenders who want to change their lives have proper access to rehabilitation services whilst they are in prison.”