{"id":500522,"date":"2025-10-15T04:08:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T04:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/500522\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T04:08:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T04:08:15","slug":"plans-for-pain-free-restraints-in-jails-in-wake-of-allan-marshall-death-derailed-by-overcrowding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/500522\/","title":{"rendered":"Plans for ‘pain free restraints’ in jails in wake of Allan Marshall death derailed by overcrowding"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Scottish Prison Service has admitted the brutal death of inmate Allan, 30, in 2015 was unlawful after excessive force was used by officers.Mary Wright<\/strong> and Dan Vevers<\/strong><\/a> Sunday Mail Chief Reporter<\/p>\n

04:30, 15 Oct 2025<\/p>\n

Allan Marshall.<\/p>\n

Plans to introduce “painfree” restraint techniques in Scotland’s prisons<\/a>, in the wake of the Allan Marshall scandal, have been derailed by an overcrowding crisis.<\/p>\n

The news comes after the Scottish Prison Service<\/a> admitted the brutal death of inmate Allan, 30, in 2015 was unlawful after excessive force was used by multiple officers.<\/p>\n

Allan, from Carluke in South Lanarkshire, was on remand at HMP Edinburgh<\/a> when he was restrained face down by 17 prison officers and died four days later.<\/p>\n

SPS<\/a> began piloting new “non-pain-inducing” control and restraints in three jails for women, young people and adult males last year.<\/p>\n

However, despite the pilot’s success in reducing violent incidents and “floor restraints”, the SPS’ annual report has revealed a planned roll-out across all 16 prisons<\/a> has hit the buffers.<\/p>\n

11) CCTV footage from Saughton Prison when guards assault inmate Allan Marshall who later died in hospital<\/p>\n

The report states: “It was hoped we would introduce this to more sites but operational pressures have prevented further progress.<\/p>\n

“The population rise has limited our ability to deliver some planned improvements in regimes and to continue the roll-out of a revised control and restraint approach.”<\/p>\n

The SPS<\/a> forecasts overcrowding will remain a major concern, with the number of inmates surging by more than 200 to 8363, one of the highest levels ever recorded.<\/p>\n

Scottish Labour<\/a> justice spokeswoman Pauline McNeill MSP described the halt as being “to the detriment of prison staff and those in custody”.<\/p>\n

Scottish Tory shadow justice secretary Liam Kerr MSP added: “The safety of inmates and prison staff should be a top priority, but important measures are now having to be kicked into the long grass.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Scottish Prison Service has admitted the brutal death of inmate Allan, 30, in 2015 was unlawful after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,24540,7898,14618,712,18695,30894,12550,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-500522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-hmp-edinburgh","12":"tag-justice","13":"tag-prisons","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-scottish-labour","16":"tag-scottish-prison-service","17":"tag-sunday-mail","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115376220602873024","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500522","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=500522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}