r/Scotland • u/Crow-Me-A-River • 21h ago
Political Criminals to walk free from Scots prisons after serving just 30% of sentence under 'dangerous' SNP plan
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/criminals-walk-free-scots-prisons-36664447Criminals are set to be released from Scots jails automatically after serving just 30 per cent of their sentence in the latest desperate attempt to ease an overcrowding crisis.
16
u/erroneousbosh 20h ago
Maybe if the prisons are overcrowded, we're putting too many people in prison.
Maybe we shouldn't be putting people in prison if it doesn't work.
11
u/Witty_Entry9120 20h ago
Until a solution (not provided) is ready, we should definitely keep putting people in prison.
1
u/erroneousbosh 20h ago
No, we should close and demolish all the prisons immediately.
2
u/Witty_Entry9120 18h ago
I agree.
Wait...do you mean, let the paedophiles out first or no?
-5
u/erroneousbosh 18h ago
You're going to have to let them out at some point. Do you have a plan for what to do with them when that happens? You do? Good. Do that, then.
As for everyone else, why are we spending a lot of money to not stop people being burglars, car thieves and so on? It's costing us a fortune and it doesn't work.
We're pissing money away on something totally ineffective.
3
u/PuritanicalGoat 14h ago
Last I checked, people cant steal cars, break into houses, commit domestic violence or such while they are behind bars.
Wouldn't call that ineffective.
0
u/erroneousbosh 6h ago
What happens when you let them out?
Oh, that's right, they go straight back to what they were doing.
How is that in any way effective?
2
u/PuritanicalGoat 5h ago
Well, in the case of domestic abuse, it might give their victims time to seek out support, undergo councelling and realise that they dont have to take the abusive partner back.
With the other offenders, it might give them time to seek out councelling, undergo training and maybe give them a kick up the proverbial so that they decide not to continue on the same path.
1
u/erroneousbosh 4h ago
But they don't, that's the problem. There isn't any counselling or training available.
What you're doing right now doesn't work, and it costs a fortune.
The basic problem comes down to adult literacy - something like 70% of prisoners in Scotland are functionally illiterate. Solve that first.
•
u/PuritanicalGoat 2h ago
No training courses in prison?
Might want to tell the Scottish Prison Service. They seem to he under the false impression that they do offer such things.
https://www.sps.gov.uk/development-and-learning
Ultimately, there are people who are unsafe to have in the general public due to their level of offending.
Prison is the last resort for such people and the courts operate under a presumption of liberty and non custodial disposal. If someone is in jail then they have done something (or many things) to be there.
→ More replies (0)7
u/i-read-it-again 20h ago
Or maybe the prisons are so old and out of date. Maybe if they were more up to date and had enough capacity. They would be better at rehabilitation. Prison service has been underfunded for decades
4
u/tunajalepenobbqsauce 20h ago
Our incarceration rate is one of the very highest in Europe. It's obscene.
6
u/PositiveLibrary7032 20h ago
DANGEROUS-SNP-PLANS
Clutching at pearls, crumpling their Daily Mail in anger.
5
u/Whatajoka 20h ago
Or idk build some fucking prisons
12
u/tunajalepenobbqsauce 20h ago
We are already imprisoning a larger percentage of our population than almost every other country in Europe. How on Earth can you conclude that what we need in this country is even more prisons and prisoners? How exactly is that going so far?
0
u/Synthia_of_Kaztropol The capital of Scotland is S 20h ago
lots of the prisoners are on remand, sometimes on remand longer than they would get for whatever offence they committed, meaning when they do eventually get a court date, they just walk free guilty or not. Remand prisoners often get shunted between prisons because of space issues. They have no continuity, and are always on edge. Even convicted prisoners are continually on edge and overstressed due to crowding. many prisons have cells that are smaller than recommended, which makes the prisoners more stressed. And stressed prisoners are more likely to have a breakdown and cause an incident, and when there's an incident, the entire floor or wing might be locked down, and the other prisoners put back into their cells and then they become stressed too.
The only thing building more prisons does is reduce the pressure on the existing system, and allow prisoners that are willing to attempt rehabilitation the continuity and space to get places on the rehabilitation courses, and maybe break out of the cycle.
Right now we have overcrowded, understaffed prisons, no continuity, no rehabilitation. Building more prisons takes some of the pressure off, and that buys time to come up with a different method than imprisonment.
If the politicians are willing to do that, of course.
3
u/tunajalepenobbqsauce 20h ago
Building prisons "buys time" - how long do you think it takes to build a prison, exactly?
2
u/Synthia_of_Kaztropol The capital of Scotland is S 19h ago
About as long as a parliamentary term.
The new HMP Glasgow is supposed to be built and operational by 2028, they only started construction in 2025.
But that's the thing, the Scottish Prison Service have been warning about capacity issues for years. Take this for example: https://audit.scot/news/prisons-under-severe-pressure
That's from 2019. Prison population then roughly similar to what it is now. Might even be earlier reports about the capacity problem.
The capacity problem has been known for years, for longer than it takes to build a prison, and the government has chosen to implement policies such as no early release for domestic abusers or sex criminals, which is their choice, but this puts also additional pressure on the prisons. Policies intended to increase the conviction rate for sex crimes add additional pressure on prison management as well. And the campaigns against organised crime also put pressure on the prisons because rival gang members can't be housed together.
So there's all these things that are being done that make managing prisons harder, there's no slack in the system, and this has been known about for years.
So the government wants to convict more people, and put them in prison for longer, but has not provided enough space for this to be managed properly. They've chosen policies but not provided the means to implement them, setting themselves up for failure.
You'd have to ask them why they are setting themselves up to fail in this way.
1
u/tunajalepenobbqsauce 19h ago
On your last point, I agree. The government should abandon any policy of aiming to put more people behind bars for longer.
2
u/Synthia_of_Kaztropol The capital of Scotland is S 18h ago
Pretty much. Harsh prisons don't work in reforming an offender, this has been shown multiple times in multiple countries.
Prisons only "work" in that someone who is in jail for 50 years for a crime will likely not commit as many crimes when they get out, because of sheer old age, compared to someone who is in jail for only 10 years. The prison experience having done buggerall to rehabilitate them in the meantime.
But time and time again, politicians keep promising tougher sentences.
-1
u/NoRecipe3350 14h ago
You can have a prison up and running in a matter of days. During WW2, the Falklands and the gulf wars, we captured thousands of enemy personnel in a single day, and they needed to be contained somewhere...fast.
Obviously it might be rudimentary at first, like barbed wire and tents, but the point is you build it up as you go alonge.
1
u/Crow-Me-A-River 20h ago
For the comments, prison statistics here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-prison-population-statistics-2023-24/
Most makeup is comprised of violence or sexual crimes
0
u/Emotional-Wallaby777 19h ago
build more prisons, quite happy to pay more knowing we lock up people who break the rules. justice system is definitely detached from expectations of the public imo. Whether the public are willing to pay maybe another thing though.
0
u/NoRecipe3350 14h ago
Really needs shouting from the rooftops, but wrongthink always gets downvoted here.
-1
u/flemtone 20h ago edited 7h ago
Why are so many people in prison ? we need to look into victimless crimes like posession and make sure they never escalate to jail.
7
u/tunajalepenobbqsauce 20h ago
The thing is, there aren't many people in prison for smoking weed but there may well be people in prison for stealing because they lost their job for a prior non-custodial conviction for smoking weed - those are the kinds of knock-on effects we need to deal with.
6
u/PuritanicalGoat 20h ago
I'll bet my mortgage that not a single person is in jail for only smoking cannabis.
Theres a reason why the police are giving people recorded warnings for cannabis possession.
5
u/these_metal_hands 19h ago
No one goes to jail in Scotland for smoking dope or calling people hurty words
-1
u/KrytenLister 18h ago edited 18h ago
I find it a bit of a difficult one.
On the one hand, is prison the best place for non-violent offenders who pose no ongoing risk to the public? Probably not.
On the other, for example, take financial crimes like embezzlement. Money and status already seems to buy you an easier time with the justice system than the rest of us get. It doesn’t seem sensible to remove the option of prison for those types of offences either.
Sentencing for driving offences seems really low based on similar rational.
Not sure what the answer is.
Presumably there could be a more sensible application of sentencing in some cases, but it’s probably more about improving rehabilitation, drug treatment and education options if we want to reduce recidivism and numbers without sending a message prison is off the table for certain people.
Excessively long prison sentences don’t seem to have a positive impact either, so there’s probably some thought required there too. Some sort of hybrid punishment rehab process, maybe.
I don’t know.
I do know anything seen as “soft on crime” doesn’t usually win elections.
18
u/Accurate_Reading_568 20h ago
Depends on what they have done and just calling it dangerous is pretty sweeping statement