'You can't build your way out of overcrowding', says Scotland's chief prison inspector

Sara Snell said it was “brave” for the Scottish Government to release prisoners early, but that ministers needed to address the root causes of overcrowding.

She also warned recruitment could be a problem and called for more funding to support ex-prisoners.

Ms Snell, the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland, said: “I'm relatively new to Scotland, but I was trying to understand the recommendations in Scotland's choice.

“And at that stage, I think Scotland, very bravely, didn't want to build its way out of overcrowding. And quite honestly, you can't build your way over out of overcrowding.

“But obviously, if you want to manage your population at the levels that your existing prison estate can cope with, then you obviously have to take a range of actions across the criminal justice system to support that.”

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Ms Snell continued: “I think what is really needed is good, data-driven evidence about what is needed, what the current sort of sentencing framework is predicting, in terms of people coming into custody.

“If the decision is Scotland's decision that that will continue, then clearly there's going to be a need for additional accommodation, which I I don't like as a solution.

“I feel that all the jurisdictions you look at that have tried to build their way overcrowding have have never succeeded. All that happens is that their prison populations rise. I think Scotland had a real, bold desire to not have an ever burgeoning population.

“But obviously, with that goes a range of community disposals, a range of putting people outside the criminal justice system, if they're more around mental health or substance misuse. And potentially trying to think of some quite different ways of managing the population.”

Justice Secretary Angela Constance has announced plans for another wave of early releases, starting next month. The number of prisoners reached a new record high of 8,430 on Tuesday last week.

Ms Snell said recruitment could become a problem for the prison service, adding: “Look at the prisons as a career at the minute. Probably there's a few people who might have thought about it, who, in the current circumstances, are thinking ‘I don't think that's for me’.

“When staff are working all hours, really struggling to do the job they joined to do just because of sheer pressure of numbers, they’re just trying to do the basics.

“I worry that if the solution is ‘we think that incarceration is right’, that it'll be hard to get the staff to work in the Scottish prison service.”

Ms Snell said she would like to see more support for people when they leave prison. “Where I would want to see the funding is in the community,” she said.

“One of the many things that people face, if they've been in prison, and then they return to the community, is whatever support is set up, it can be really hard to navigate your way through all of the appointments that you have to, particularly go out after a long sentence where the world's changed quite considerably.”

She continued: “If you constantly invest in prisons and prison buildings, you're investing in the back end, you're not investing in the reasons why people come to prison in the first place, and you're not investing in what helps them to succeed once they've left prison.”

Ms Constance said she accepted the prison population was at such a level that “immediate action is now required”.

She said the Scottish Government was “investing more in community justice, because community justice in many instances is more effective in reducing reoffending”.