{"id":431186,"date":"2025-09-17T12:51:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T12:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/431186\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T12:51:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T12:51:14","slug":"conditions-in-barlinnie-shameful-says-senior-prisons-official","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/431186\/","title":{"rendered":"Conditions in Barlinnie \u2018shameful\u2019, says senior prisons official"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Conditions in Scotland\u2019s largest jail are \u201cshameful\u201d, a senior prisons official has said.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>HMP Barlinnie in Glasgow has been stretched to breaking point in recent years as the whole prison estate struggles with overcrowding.<\/p>\n<p>Fears have been raised in recent years that the conditions at the Victorian prison could breach the human rights of prisoners, some of whom are forced to share cells due to the prison being at 140% of its capacity.<\/p>\n<p>The jail in the city\u2019s east end is due to be demolished and replaced with a \u00a31bn facility with greater capacity.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a meeting of Holyrood\u2019s Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday, Scottish Prison Service deputy chief executive Linda Pollock was scathing about the situation facing prisoners and staff.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re really pleased with the support from the Scottish Government to be able to build in Highland and in Glasgow,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ll have seen the facilities that we have, the conditions that we\u2019re holding men in Barlinnie just now is shameful and it is important that we do \u2013 and we\u2019re grateful for the support to \u2013 build better facilities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey will give more space, although limited more space, but importantly they will give more humane conditions for the people in our care.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a very difficult, long-term problem that Scotland is experiencing, and I would also say it is in England and Wales and other countries across Western Europe as well, particularly as we look at court backlogs and the rise of long-term sentences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ms Pollock added: \u201cIt\u2019s very sad that we\u2019re sitting today with over 1,400 men in Barlinnie, we\u2019re sitting at 140% capacity, so we are very concerned about the overcrowding and the impact that has on us and what our operational levers are that we can use to respond to that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>STV News is now on WhatsApp<\/p>\n<p>Get all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029VaCESJzKgsNvKKNOYO2r\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">      Follow STV News <\/a>Follow STV News on WhatsApp<\/p>\n<p>Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758059248_2_whatsapp-qr.png\" alt=\"WhatsApp channel QR Code\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conditions in Scotland\u2019s largest jail are \u201cshameful\u201d, a senior prisons official has said. HMP Barlinnie in Glasgow has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-431186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115219731871298361","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}