Scottish prisoners are ‘happy’ to be behind bars

Survey reveals prisoners are banged up and loving it.

A new survey claims the majority of Scottish prisoners feel “cheerful” and “relaxed” behind bars.

Almost three-quarters of inmates polled for a major survey said they were happy with their lives behind bars.

Inmates were quizzed on their feelings as part of a bizarre taxpayer-funded survey into the lifestyles of prisoners at Scotland’s 15 jails.

Other questions asked in the survey included whether they feel loved with more than one in two saying they do.

Campaigners have blasted the survey as a waste of cash.

Margaret Watson, of the Justice for Victims campaign group, said: “We should be spending the resources, time and money devoted to surveys like this on victims of crime and not the people who have committed awful crimes.”

The probe carried out by jail experts looked at prisoner behaviour in 2013 and compared it with 2011. Despite the research being carried out last year, the findings were only published last month. It showed widespread similarities between the two years with drug-taking behind bars remaining one of the biggest problems facing the Scottish Prison Service (SPS).

Nearly two out of every five inmates admitted abusing substances in 2013.

In some jails like Kilmarnock and Perth more than half of cons admitted taking mind-bending substances while incarcerated in the latest survey.

And incredibly, some prisoners said they only started taking drugs while in prison. In Aberdeen, nearly one in six prisoners said they had injected drugs behind bars.

Last night politicians and unions warned jail chiefs were failing to tackle the endemic drug use in Scottish prisons.

Scottish Conservative justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell said: “The justice secretary has to get a grip on this, because these statistics are absolutely damning.”

Phil Fairley of the Prison Officers’ Association Scotland who represent prison officers said prisoners with drug problems pose a “huge challenge” for their members.

He said: “While we don’t accept it, we realise it’s hard to completely get rid of.

“If prisoners and their families put the same ingenuity and creativity they do smuggling drugs into jail into something productive they would be pillars of the community.”

But the survey also showed how big a part substance abuse had played in them being jailed.

More than half of the prisoners said they had taken illegal drugs in the year leading up to their convictions, with almost 40% saying they were on drugs when they committed their crimes.

One in six said they committed the offence to get money for illegal substances.

Last night a spokesman for the SPS said measures are in place to reduce the supply of drugs in prisons. He said they also “support individuals to address their drug problem by delivering services broadly equivalent to what is available in the community”.