Scottish prison cells ‘breach torture standards’
There are 2,230 prisoners in Scotland whose cells are below the minimum size set down by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT).
The figure was revealed in the Scottish Parliament in response to a question from the Scottish Liberal Democrats, who asked how many people were in shared cells with less than 4 square metres of personal space – the floor area stipulated by the CPT.
Defending its treatment of prisoners, the SNP-led Scottish Government pointed out that there is no legal requirement to meet the CPT standard, and that and in many cases the living space was only marginally below the figure.
Lib Dem Scottish justice spokesperson Liam McArthur said: “On the SNP’s watch, not only are prisons bursting at the seams but the conditions inside many of them contravene basic standards for humane treatment.
“The problem is so acute that the Government’s best justification is most cells are only marginally smaller than the internationally recognised minimum standards, but in a number of cases they are not even meeting that low level that they’ve set themselves. As well as posing a danger to staff safety, overcrowding makes it much harder for prison staff to focus on successful rehabilitation that is key to reducing reoffending.”
Further research found that in 36 cells, the space for two people was 7 square metres, equivalent to 3.5 square meters each. Most of these cells were in HMP Edinburgh, otherwise known as Saughton prison.
Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), said: “Whilst the Council of Prevention of Torture’s minimum standard is four metres squared plus fully partitioned sanitary facilities, not complying with that does not constitute breach of the law.”
A spokesperson for the service added “We have a population that is rapidly increasing and far more complex due to factors such as types of offending, levels of serious and organised crime, a population growing older, and high numbers of remand prisoners. Many establishments are full beyond their design capacity which increases the pressure on space available.”
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