Inspectors have criticised the “disappointing underuse” of a prison they held as one which should be seen as a “flagship establishment” of the prison service in Scotland.
HMP Castle Huntly, the only open prison north of the border, was praised by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland (HMIPS). However the watchdog warned that, with a population less than half its capacity, the prison service had a “stark choice” of either continuing to run the expensive facility or make better use of the Perth and Kinross jail.
HMIPS said a more radical option might be to close the prison, allowing other jails to run more open regimes, but warned it would be “hard to replicate the inspiring and restorative tranquility of HMP Castle Huntly”. Inspectors, who looked around the prison between June and July this year, said “HMP Castle Huntly should be a flagship establishment of the Scottish Prison Service” but that “unfortunately, too few prisoners are afforded the opportunity to access it”.
