Scottish prisons to release 139 inmates this week in bid to tackle overcrowding

Scotland’s justice secretary has said 139 prisoners will be released early this week in the latest batch of releases aimed at easing overcrowding in Scottish prisons.

Last week the Scottish Parliament approved the plans that could result in about 990 prisoners released over the next six months.

Short-term prisoners serving sentences of under four years and within 180 days of their scheduled release are eligible for emergency release.

Anyone serving a sentence for sexual offences or domestic abuse is excluded, as are registered sex offenders.

Justice Secretary Angela Constance said while 213 prisoners are eligible for release this week, the “governor’s veto” means only 139 will be freed.

She told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “In terms of this first tranche, which is this week, there are 213 prisoners eligible.

“However, because of the stringent safeguards that have been introduced, there is the governor’s veto.

“So for tranche one, there will be 139 prisoners released early this week, and that is necessary to ease overcrowding in our prisons, which presents a critical risk to the safety and wellbeing of those who work in prisons.

“If we have more victims in our prisons (workforce), we will have more victims in our community, so this is being done in a planned, orderly fashion.”

Scotland’s prison population reached a record high of 8,431 last week.

Justice Secretary Angela Constance said the release is being done in a ‘planned, orderly’ fashion. PA Media

Holyrood voted by 66 votes to 51 with five abstentions on November 5 for regulations which will release prisoners early in the latest of a series of actions.

About 440 prisoners could be released in the first three fortnightly tranches over November and December.

Around 550 could be released over the remaining four monthly tranches from January to April 2026, with the largest numbers freed likely to be in January.

Ms Constance was asked about the return-to-custody rate of those who benefitted from previous early release schemes.

She said: “The return-to-custody rate for the first early emergency release was 13%, and the return-to-custody rate for those released when we changed the law around short-term prisoners and their point of release was 5%.

“So in terms of the legislation that was passed to release some short-termers early routinely, 17 of those were returned to custody.

“And you know in comparison to, for example, reconviction rates of those who have been released from a short-term sentence within the first year, those figures compare well although they’re not exact comparisons, I would acknowledge that.”

Ms Constance said the foundations have been laid to establish a more “sustainable” prison population.

Earlier this year she established the Independent Sentencing and Penal Commission, which is looking at how custody and community justice are used in this country.

The minister said she is also committed to the continued investment and expansion of “robust” community justice.

Ms Constance told the programme: “I’ve always been very clear that our prison population is too high, and that if we want to not have to be taking decisions for emergency release and decisions around shorter-term relief you do as a government, the Parliament and a country have to make different decisions in the longer term to have a more sustainable population.

“So the foundations of that have been laid.”