From BBC UK today:
There are fewer than 100 available spaces left across the male prison estate in England and Wales, the BBC understands.1
There are currently 8 348 prisoners in Scotland’s prisons.2
From Audit Scotland in December 2023:
SPS has advised that as at November 2023 the extended operating capacity that the prison estate can accommodate is 8,475.3
So, 127 places still available for a population only one eleventh of the population of England and Wales. They should have at least 1 400 but have ‘less than 100’, only a fourteenth!
Sources:
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rw48nj282o
- https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-prison-population-justice-secretary-statement/#:~:text=However%2C%20with%20the%20population%20having,populations%20ever%20recorded%20in%20Scotland.
- https://audit.scot/uploads/docs/report/2023/s22_231212_scottish_prison_service.pdf (14)
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I watched Keir Starmer’s speech yesterday. I thought it was more nuanced than the predictable splenetic outbursts from right and left. It seemed to me he was trying to move to a more redistributive narrative.
During the speech he made frequent references to the rioting and the shortage of prison spaces as an example to illustrate how badly the Tories had failed in this as they had in many other aspects of the public domain.
The media questions from the broadcast media and the almost entirely right wing London media representatives was predictably carping and cavilling, as they continued the right wing paradigm they have spewed out for years.
the Channel 4 News question related to the early release of prisoners – tacit subtext being that they are all murderers, rapists and terrorists – and asked for a guarantee that ‘none will reoffend after release’.
However, having dealt with the riots in ENGLAND in 2011 as Director of Public Prosecutions he could talk with authority on this and made the point well, I thought, that as rioters were being arrested, prosecuting officers were having to scour records for prison spaces.
Too many people who do not present a danger to the public are in jail. We need to change things so that Sheriffs and Judges have more alternative options. One of the best expositions I have heard came from the disgraced, imprisoned and sincerely repentant former Tory Cabinet Minister Jonathan Aitken. Let us hope that the appointment of James Timpson changes the hegemony on crime and punishment in Scotland as well as in England.
Alasdair Macdonald
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Not sure how that will ‘change’ anything in Scotland, given Scots Law is not under English control, well, not quite anyway! It’s not perfect to say the least, but for example a person cannot be locked up for debt in Scotland, as they can be, and are in England, even for non payment of the TV tax (license). In Scotland a person can be locked up for non payment of fines, so if you don’t or can’t pay your council tax/water charges, and your council takes court action, you might end up in the jail.
England doesn’t have ‘sherrifs’, they are called ‘High court enforcement officers’.
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Might they send up crims from England to plonk in Scottish prisons, could they do that?
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The UK has the highest prison population compared to the EU. Half are on the spectrum, neurodiverse without diagnosis or proper support. The rest are addicted to drink or drugs and should be in proper, total abstinence rehab facilities. More affective outcome. The link between drink and drug addiction and crime.
Austerity increased ‘crime’. Knife deaths in London increase by 200 a year. Support facilities were closed. Violent riots and protests because of years of austerity. Now filling the prisons.
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