Prison service boss tells of ‘critical challenge’ from rising numbers of inmates

The rising number of inmates in Scotland’s jails presents the “most critical operational and strategic challenge” to the prison service, its chief executive has said.

Scottish Prison Service (SPS) chief executive Teresa Medhurst said an estimated £6 million would be needed in 2025-26 to cope with the higher level of prisoners.

Her comments came as she told MSPs on Holyrood’s Criminal Justice Committee that the number of inmates stood at 8,313 as of Wednesday.

That compares to a population of 8,348 when Justice Secretary Angela Constance ordered an emergency release of prisoners in May this year.

With increasing numbers of prisoners now having complicated medical and social care needs, Ms Medhurst also revealed to the committee the SPS had been “scoping out options” for a facility that would be “more akin to a hospital-type care home”.

While she said work had been done on that, she added: “Unfortunately because of the population increase this year we’ve not been able to take that any further forward at this moment in time.”

In a submission to MSPs ahead of the committee meeting, the SPS chief executive said that “the budgetary costs of the rising prison population is by far our most critical operational and strategic challenge”.

She added the increase in prison numbers, and the “increased complexity” of care needed by some made it “more challenging for staff to provide the quality rehabilitative work which our justice system relies on”.

Her submission also stressed that “greater funding is required to meet the additional operational running costs of an increasing population”, citing higher costs for food, clothing and bedding and utilities, as well as greater costs for social care and health.

As a result, “SPS have estimated that the increased budget required for 2025-26 will be around an additional £6 million,” her submission added.

Appearing before MSPs, she spoke out about other problems linked to the rise in the prison population.

Ms Medhurst said: “As with any population increase in numbers you see increases in violence and other factors, because of the pressured nature. You have got more people in the same amount of space and pressures rise, tensions rise, people become less tolerant.”

She added that an increase in inmates involved in serious organised crime gangs had resulted in “increased credible threats to our staff over the last year or two”.

Meanwhile, prisoners taking drugs such as benzodiazepines and psychoactive substances can be “unpredictable” and “quite violent towards staff”, she said.

Ms Medhurst told the MSPs when prisoners were released early in June and July “we anticipated at that point we would have a three-month window whereby we would be able to ease the pressure across the estate”.

But she added: “That wasn’t realised, therefore, that pressure has continued.”

The “unpredictability” of the prison population makes it “extremely difficult to plan for a budget”, Ms Medhurst continued.

The SPS chief executive said while there had been a “slow steady rise” in inmates from January 2023, there had been a much more “marked increase” from April this year with “no prior notice”.

Adding that the “200 increase in six weeks” could happen again, she said: “It is that kind of unpredictably we are dealing with at the moment and have done for this financial year, and therefore it is extremely difficult to plan for a budget.”

Her comments came as SPS deputy chief executive Linda Pollock told the committee the needs of some prisoners meant prison staff could feel more like carers.

She told the committee issues such as social care, mental health, addictions and neurodiversity were “having a real impact on how we care for our residents”.

Ms Pollock said: “I was in Edinburgh yesterday and some of the staff were saying sometimes they feel they are carers for some of the folk in our care. It takes up their time.”

Ms Medhurst said the SPS had seen social care costs rise, telling MSPs: “I think it’s a 16% increase in the number of individuals over the last couple of years who have required social care.”

She continued: “The other thing we have seen increasingly is people who require palliative care and people who are choosing to stay in prison rather than be transferred to hospital or hospices for end of life care.”