Thousands more will be locked up as jail population explodes

THE number of prisoners in Scotland’s jails is set to rise by more than 2,000 by 2020, Scottish Government statisticians have warned, despite a slight drop this year.

According to the latest figures there was a 1 per cent reduction in the number of prisoners in the 2010-11 financial year, down to 7,330.

The decrease of 110 was mainly due to a reduction in the young offender population.

But according to statisticians the overall trend is for a continued increase with the number expected to rise to around 9,500 in 2019-20.

This comes despite efforts by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to bring the number of prisoners down with a policy of switching short-term sentences of less than three months for community service orders.

The National Statistics report added: “The recent figures suggest that the rate of change is currently slowing down to some extent, after the sustained increases observed in the prison population since 2000-01.

“However, it is still too early to tell whether this represents the beginning of a longer term levelling out of the prison population.

“The dip is primarily down to marked drops in the young offender population for both remand and direct sentenced prisoners by 14 per cent and 17 per cent respectively.”

Projections from an earlier report showed there could be 9,500 inmates by 2019-20. The latest annual figures reveal there were 1,112 people untried and on remand in Scottish jails.

The overall number of male prisoners decreased by 2 per cent to 7,419, while the number of women increased by 3 per cent to 435.

The average daily population on home detention curfew last year was 3,030, a drop of 18 per cent on the previous year. Decreases were also seen for prisoners given most types of sentences, except life sentences, which increased by 5 per cent.

The figures were condemned by Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie MSP in a week where his colleagues in England have been concerned about harsh sentences being handed out to people who took part in the riots and looting.

Mr Rennie said: “The ‘bang them up’ approach costs a fortune and in many cases doesn’t work. The Liberal approach costs less and in so many cases is the best way forward.

“Scotland’s prisons are dangerously overcrowded with prisoners being packed in like sardines. Prisons should not be schools of crime. We need to stop prisoners re-offending on release and being locked up again.”

He added: “The innovative programmes being piloted in England to cut re-offending should be considered by the Scottish Government.”

But the Scottish Tories, the Lib Dems coalition partners in Westminster, insisted that “prison works”.

They also pointed out that the number of recalls of prisoners out on licence has more than trebled in a decade from 196 in 2000-01 to 682 in 2010-11.

Tory justice spokesman John Lamont said: “The Scottish Government needs to realise that prison sentences can work and courts should be given the freedom to use them.”