SHRC raises serious human rights concerns following Council of Europe report on Scottish prisons and secure care settings

The Scottish Human Rights Commission has written to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Neil Gray, raising serious human rights concerns in Scottish prisons and secure care settings.

The letter is informed by a July 2 report from the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), which highlighted serious concerns following a visit to Scotland in June 2025.

Europe's anti-torture body returned to Scotland and found conditions in its prisons and secure care settings that echo many warnings made repeatedly over more than a decade including by the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC).

The Committee carried out an unannounced visit to Scotland in June 2025 examining conditions across six prisons and five police custody settings. This was the Committee's third visit to Scotland in the last seven years.
The Scottish Human Rights Commission letter raises the following human rights concerns, which have been previously raised in the Commission's work:

  • Scottish prisons are deeply affected by overcrowding, with some prisoners sharing cells that are smaller than CPT minimum standards. At its most extreme, overcrowding threatens the safety and lives of both prisoners and staff.
  • Use of restraint in secure care for children was found to be high in one setting with children observed with fresh injuries during the visit.
  • Deaths in custody - The CPT has repeated recommendations around review of the Fatal Accident Inquiry system following deaths in custody. The CPT has also noted with concern the increasing death rate in custody.
  • Many people were locked in their cells for up to 23 hours a day. Segregation used for weeks or months at a time with insufficient safeguards.
  • Medical staff are not present in prisons around the clock, raising concern in the context of Scotland’s high number of deaths in custody.

Read the full CPT report.

The CPT final report findings echo the conclusions of Review, Recommend, Repeat: a report published jointly by the SHRC and the UK National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) in 2024. It found that 83 per cent of recommendations made by international human rights bodies to Scotland over ten years had seen little or no meaningful progress.

Professor Angela O’Hagan, Chair, Scottish Human Rights Commission said:

“The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture has now visited Scotland three times in seven years and is raising the same concerns. Behind these report findings are people in the total control of the State, relying on it to meet their most basic human rights.

In 2024 we evidenced that 83 per cent of recommendations from international human rights bodies remained unaddressed. This visit shows why that matters and warm words on human rights must be matched by urgent, concrete action. The Scottish Government must now move from acceptance to action.”

ENDS

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