Liam Kerr

The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) Scotland is looking at the number of inmates involved and the effects of doubling up. The situation is so bad it has curtailed access to the basic rights of exercise, education and recreations.

POA Scotland chair Phil Fairlie said a crisis was imminent.

“We are holding 700 prisoners more than the design capacity for the entire estate, 700 more than this time last year, and not a single extra member of staff,” he said.

“We have prisoners doubling up in cells only ever meant to hold one, and Low Moss [in Glasgow] has been asked to make contingency plans to take another 100 over and above a capacity already exceeded.”

Scottish Conservatives justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: “There is no question that overcrowding of our jails will increase the risk that more human rights claims will follow. This all comes down to the SNP’s refusal to properly fund Scotland’s justice system.”

An SPS insider said: “We have ended slopping-out but we are desperately overcrowded and that inevitably restricts prisoners’ access to exercise, education and recreation. Two of the three elements that cost us dearly in the Napier case are back in place.”

A spokesman for the SPS conceded that prisoner numbers were “very high”, adding: “We are experiencing pressures as a consequence of those very high numbers.”