His warning comes as The Scotsman reveals
eight of Scotland's 14 jails are overcrowded, some desperately.
Five are on a critical list, with levels of overcrowding beyond
what staff are expected to manage.
Mr McKinlay has told The Scotsman he is rapidly reaching the stage
where he will have to say "no more".
Delivering the starkest warning yet about overcrowding in
Scotland's jails, Mr McKinlay said Barlinnie would cease to
function properly after its population, currently about 1,500,
exceeded 1,665.
"I do not want to go any higher than I am at the moment. The
numbers when I go into crisis are 1,665 and above. We have a
leeway of roughly 160 spaces," he said.
This is the sight that
greets new inmates at Barlinnie – the 'dog boxes' where they are
kept during the induction process
"At that number, it would impinge on the basic regime. We would
have to start closing down workshops and such like. I would have
to say to my director, and my board, 'I can't take any more. I'm
at the limit'."
Contingency plans are being prepared to bail out the severely
pressured Victorian jail, which houses one-fifth of the country's
prison population – one of the highest proportions in the world
for one establishment.
Prison service officials are already planning to send inmates from
Barlinnie to a handful of other prisons with spaces.
But those jails are also rapidly filling up due to rising levels
of reported violent crime, fewer offenders being granted bail and
a growing number being locked up for non-violent crimes.
Demands are growing for immediate action to relieve the
overcrowding crisis, which is likely to make Scotland's already
high reoffending rate even worse, while threatening to trigger
compensation claims totalling millions of pounds from inmates over
human rights .
An investigation by The Scotsman reveals that eight of Scotland's
14 prisons are holding more inmates than they were designed for,
with five suffering damaging levels of overcrowding. They are
Barlinnie, Aberdeen, Cornton Vale, Edinburgh and Polmont, some of
which have had to severely limit access to training and education.
Other prisons, such as Inverness, are also housing way beyond the
number of prisoners for which they were designed, although the
practice of "doubling up" – putting two people in a cell – has
eased the pressure.
Barlinnie currently houses around 1,500 inmates, nearly 50 per
cent more than it was designed to take.
Mr McKinlay said he would be unable to fulfil legal requirements
on basic standards such as number of visits, access to fresh air
and adequate food if numbers continued to rise.
"What you don't want to get to is human warehousing. I'm not there
yet, but I don't like what's happening," he said.
Scotland's prison population has increased by 6 per cent – from
7,210 to 7,623 – in the past 12 months, and by nearly a quarter in
the past four years. The numbers are growing steadily, as well as
rapidly. Last year, the prison population record was broken 25
times.
The Scotsman has learned that, unless the trend is reversed,
Barlinnie is heading towards meltdown in December.
Senior prison staff are preparing contingency plans to avoid a
collapse of the prison regime, including sending inmates to other
jails.
Mr McKinlay added: "There is still the ability to double-up in
other prisons, but they are going down the same path as me."
He said deteriorating conditions made it "very difficult" to
rehabilitate criminals. "It doesn't allow us to increase family
contact beyond the minimum. We have 300 work spaces and 890-odd
convicted prisoners. People who want to work get only a half-day."
Kenny MacAskill, the justice secretary, will today visit the site
of a new jail at Addiewell, West Lothian, which will create 700
more places when it fully opens next year.
But if the growth in the prison population continues to spiral
upwards, this space will be filled in little more than a year. Mr
MacAskill said £120 million a year was being spent on expanding
and upgrading the country's prisons, "but we can't just build our
way out of the problem".
He added: "In Scotland, we are locking up more people than ever
before." He said the prison population, including the numbers
freed early on home detention curfews (HDCs), had recently passed
the 8,000 barrier.
"That's why, as a first step to dealing with these immediate
problems, we are proposing to extend the range of the HDC scheme
introduced by the last administration."
That will involve allowing early release to some violent offenders
classed as being a low risk of reoffending.
He added: "In the longer term, we need a coherent penal policy
that allows prisons to do their job with serious and violent
offenders but diverts those offenders who do not present a risk to
the public and for whom prison is manifestly not working."
Baroness Vivien Stern, senior research fellow at the International
Centre for Prison Studies, said Scotland needed to learn from
countries such as Finland and Norway, which use initiatives
including prison "waiting lists" to avoid overcrowding.
"We have to invest far more money in 'diversion programmes' for
non-violent offenders," she added.
Roger Houchin, co-director of the Glasgow Centre for the Study of
Violence, said the "unprecedented" level of overcrowding in
Scottish jails made offenders more likely to commit crime when
they were released.
Bill Aitken, Conservative justice spokesman, said: "The Scottish
Prison service has a problem, but I'm afraid it will have to live
with it in the short-term."
Conservative leader David Cameron will today set out plans to
build 5,000 jail places in England and Wales in a radical shake-up
of the prison system.
OVERCROWDING: THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
BUILD MORE PRISONS: This may appear like the obvious solution to
overcrowding and, indeed, three new prisons are in the pipeline.
Addiewell, in West Lothian, will open next year. The privately run
jail will create 700 more spaces. A new 700-capacity jail is also
planned at Bishopbriggs, with a third prison to replace the
existing facilities in Peterhead and Aberdeen. But critics point
to the massive cost – about £100 million each to build – and say
that more prisons will do little to tackle Scotland's appalling
re-offending rate.
LET MORE PRISONERS OUT EARLY: This is an option the government is
already pursuing. About 340 prisoners are currently "out" under a
home detention curfew (HDC). HDCs allow short-term prisoners who
have been assessed as being low risk to be freed, with an
electronic tag attached to their leg, for up to a quarter of their
sentence. The SNP government has announced plans to extend HDC to
some prisoners who have committed serious, violent crimes.
Proponents point to the fact that only a handful of minor crimes
have been committed by prisoners on HDC. But critics say they
undermine public faith in sentencing.
RESTRICT NUMBER OF PRISON SENTENCES: Kenny MacAskill, the Justice
Secretary, wants to get fine defaulters and other minor criminals
out of prison. He has already received a briefing from officials
which revealed that 83 per cent of offenders are in prison for six
months or less. Mr MacAskill believes many of these should be
given proper, testing, community sentences. But he has stopped
short of actually preventing courts from jailing people for
so-called lesser crimes. Those who do not pay fines are to be
given community sentences rather than a few days in prison, but
the numbers involved are small.
WAITING LISTS: Certain prisoners, instead of being jailed on
conviction, are summoned to jail when a space becomes available.
Such a system is already used in Norway and some other European
countries.
Supporters argue that as well as preventing overcrowding, it helps
to foster respect among offenders for the penal system, as they
are required to co-operate with it. But it has in the past been
seen as simply too radical for Scotland's justice system.
TOUGHER COMMUNITY SENTENCES: If Mr MacAskill is to achieve his
goal of reducing prison numbers, he will have to deliver on his
pledge to strengthen the alternatives to custody.
He has already announced plans for tougher, more flexible
community sentences designed to ensure
"payback" for crimes. The logic is sound
– provided they are able to address the underlying causes of
crime, such as drug and alcohol addiction. But the major obstacle
remains convincing the courts, and the public, that offenders who
are currently sent to jail should be allowed to remain in the
community.
PACK THEM IN: Many people have no sympathy for prisoners who have
a harder time in jail because of overcrowding. As the saying goes:
"If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." But this
philosophy presents a number of pitfalls. One of them is the legal
obligation on the prison service to keep prisoners in humane
conditions. This requires a number of things of governors,
including that they provide minimum visits and enough exercise.
Both of these are threatened by overcrowding. But it also makes
rehabilitation harder – meaning inmates are more likely to
re-offend after release.
