Professor John Robertson OBA

Thanks to Dorothy for suggesting this.

According to the Herald yesterday, there were 9 releases in error of prisoners in Scotland, with 3 more in 2025 so far._¹ The Herald, of course, has added up the figures, 8, 7 and 9 over the last 3 year to make a worryingly, for them, flat trend.

All things being equal, pro rata, you’d expect the figure for England and Wales to be 11 times higher, 99 but, in the same period, it was 262, nearly THREE times more common and increasing by 128% from 115 the previous year.2

Sources:

https://news.sky.com/story/how-many-prisoners-are-released-by-mistake-here-are-the-stats-as-search-for-migrant-sex-offender-continues-13457029

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25601298.27-prisoners-mistakenly-released-scotland-since-2022/

Why this difference? This?

Prison assaults were pro rata more than TWICE as common in England & Wales than in Scotland

Click on this for the details:

Prison activity time – Lib Dumbs cannot count as trend is upward but assaults remain at half the level of England & Wales

Finally and perhaps most important, the prisoner-to-prison officer ratio in England, is approximately 3.7:1 as of mid-2025:

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/performance-tracker-2023/prisons

In Scotland, it’s 1.7:1, thus more than twice as well-staffed:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd7rv9yx0x9o

Click to access SPS_Annual_Report_and_Accounts_2024-25.pdf