The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has today published a report following its ad hoc visit to a number of prisons, police stations and secure accommodation centres for children in June 2025.

The report notes the steady growth of the prison population in the country despite various steps taken by the Scottish government. It described the emergency measures taken to date as insufficient, calling for a new strategy to address both the admission and release of prisoners.

The committee noted that overcrowding was having an adverse impact on conditions of detention at the three male prisons it visited (Barlinnie, Low Moss and Perth), leading to unacceptable occupancy rates. Overcrowding and staff shortages also meant that many prisoners were being locked up in their cells for extended periods of the day.

The CPT specifically urged the authorities to improve the poor daily regime offered to inmates in Separation and Reintegration Units, where prisoners were mostly confined to their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, without any meaningful human contact. It stressed that “carousel” or “yo-yo” situations for certain prisoners remained a real challenge.

The committee welcomed the significant reform of women’s prisons in Scotland, including the new Stirling Prison for women and the introduction of two Community Custody Units providing community-style living and a more humane alternative to traditional prisons.

However, the CPT noted that three different models of holding women prisoners are now in operation in the country, highlighting concerns including a limited daily regime for inmates, inter-prisoner violence and assaults on staff in in the older, mixed-gender prisons such as Polmont.

The committee also welcomed the shift from detaining children in Young Offender Institutions to Secure Care Centres as a positive step forward. Nonetheless, some centres offered a better, safer environment than others. Prompt, comprehensive reforms are still required to reinforce the system of secure childcare, said the CPT.

The Scottish government’s response largely accepts the CPT’s diagnosis without disputing the underlying figures. 

On overcrowding, it points to the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Act 2025 – which cut the release threshold for short-term prisoners from 50 per cent to 40 per cent, and from 12 May 2026 to 30 per cent – alongside £10 million in new community justice funding (£169 million total for 2026/27) and the new prisons at Highland (200 places, late 2026) and Glasgow (1,344 places, 2028), while conceding that in the meantime SPS “is unable to ensure” the CPT’s minimum cell-space standards are met. 

As regards segregation, it acknowledges a Short Life Segregation Working Group has been established but confirms there is “currently no national policy plan” for the therapeutic step-down units the CPT has been recommending since 2019, and declines to comment on the individual case of a prisoner (D.D.) held in segregation for effectively two decades, citing data protection. 

It rules out building further community custody units for women “at this time,” instead directing resources toward maximising Stirling’s capacity, while noting a new six-bed secure psychiatric ward for women became operational in July 2025. 

On children’s secure accommodation, it highlights that the Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill and the Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill both passed at Holyrood in March 2026 and are awaiting royal assent, and that Rossie House has removed prone restraint from its practice – but it stops short of committing to an independent review of restraint use at St Mary’s, where the CPT found restraint had been applied disproportionately to girls, despite the committee’s specific request for one.