By Professor John Robertson, OBA

From BBC Scotland today:

Around 470 prisoners could be released early from Scottish prisons by the end of the year. Justice secretary Angela Constance has asked parliament to pass emergency legislation that would see short-term prisoners – within 180 days of their release date – to be freed in tranches in November and December. It is the third time early release has been used in this way in Scotland since last summer.

Constance said the move was necessary to prevent overcrowding after the prison population “surged” in the last three months. In a statement to MSPs, the justice secretary said: “It is clear to me that we need to reduce the current pressure on our prisoners and the officers, staff and wider professional who play a vital role working in our prison service. “Let me be clear, this is not an action I propose lightly. It is, however, necessary and I consider that the legal test has been met.”

and of course:

Scottish Labour justice spokesperson Pauline McNeill MSP said: “This is total system chaos, with Scotland now on the cusp of having a record number of people in custody and prisons at critical levels of security concern.” The Scottish Conservatives said it was a “knee-jerk” response to an overcrowding problem of the government’s own making. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gvyl2zzkko

What is the evidence to back up Constance’s position?

Released prisoners now 27% less likely to re-offend than they were when Labour was in power

Prisoner reconviction rates, like suicide, abortion, stillbirth, infant mortality and drug deaths represent a window into the wider success of a government over the longer term. In Scotland, all have been falling since the SNP came to power. The partial exception, drug deaths, have stalled as the country faces a spreading plague of English County Lines drug gangs bringing violence and more frequent overdoses resulting from cheaper and more deadly drug supplies.

In 2008/2009, there were 0.6 reconvictions per offender, on average.

By 2020/2021 (latest figures) there were 0.44, a 27% reduction.

Source: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202400437050/

What is the evidence that the overcrowding is lower than had the LabCons run Scotland this last 18 years?

With 10 times the population, you might expect England to have only released 10 times 477 or around 5 000 but under Labour it has released 26 000, more than FIVE times as many!

Nearly 250 fewer in Scotland’s prisons after 18 years free of Con/Labour control

In 2024, a Council of Europe SPACE-I collection occurred on the 1st January and shows that Scotland continued to have one of the highest prison population rates in western Europe. On that date there were 140.5 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants in Scotland. On this occasion, while in Northern Ireland it remained far lower at 94.2 per 100,000 inhabitants, the prison population rate in England & Wales was slightly higher than that in Scotland at 145.0 per 100,000.¹

‘Slightly higher?’ Once more, even among highly trained professionals, an inability to understand what small ratio differences in big populations can really mean for those from whom the data are collected.

A difference of 4.5 per 100 000 has to be multiplied by how many 100 000s there are in Scotland’s population of 5.5 million – 55. So, Scotland has 247.5 fewer in prison than it would have had the Cons and Labour been managing its prisons these last 18 years.

Source:

1. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2024/11/scottish-prison-population-statistics-2023-24/documents/report-pdf/report-pdf/govscot%3Adocument/Scottish%2BPrison%2BPopulation%2BStatistics%2B2023-24%2B-%2BBulletin.pdf

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