Kenny MacAskill: Building is designed to ensure 'tough new crackdowns'.
Prisoners at Scotland's newest jail will be expected to work eight hours a day and have power cut to cells in the daytime as part of a stringent rehabilitation regime.
HM Prison Low Moss in East Dunbartonshire is designed to provide accommodation for 700 prisoners while relieving overcrowding across the country's prisons.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, on a visit to the jail, said: "Our priority for any prison is to punish serious offenders and keep the public safe.
"This new building, and the way it is designed, will allow prison management to impose tough new crackdowns on inmates, such as cutting the power to cells during the day and operating a 9-5 working week."
Low Moss prison, which is due to open in March, will also have a link centre to help prisoners deal with matters such as employment, housing, social work and addiction.
Mr MacAskill said the jail was consistent with the Scottish Government's commitment to reduce the number of short sentences being imposed, which has prompted opposition parties to accuse the SNP of "soft-touch justice".
He said: "In the case of many other prisons, staff have to deal with the constraints of outdated buildings and unsuitable facilities but at HMP Low Moss, the Prison Service has been able to build a prison which meets its needs, puts the necessary constraints on prisoners and provides the space for worthwhile rehabilitation training.
"Overcrowding does remain a problem across the whole prison estate, as it does in almost every other western democracy.
"It is not something we can simply build our way out of and it's, therefore, vital that we find better solutions for low-level criminals who pose low risk."
Scottish Labour justice spokesman Lewis Macdonald said the opening of the new prison would not solve "overcrowding problems overnight".
He added: "Kenny MacAskill has a brass neck heralding the opening of this new prison when it was his SNP Government that has massively delayed the project.
"Scotland's prisons are hugely overcrowded and too many prisoners currently spend their days staring idly at prison walls instead of engaged in meaningful work and rehabilitation."
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