Complaining cons ‘a huge w aste of time’
A HARD core of 10 whining prisoners are plaguing jail bosses with an average of nearly three official moans a day.
A Sunday Post probe has discovered the group of inmates – which includes murderers and rapists – made nearly 1000 official complaints about life behind bars in the last year.
The gripes underpin a growing complaints culture within Scotland’s jails which has led to accusations that cons are being increasingly mollycoddled by a soft-touch justice system.
Our figures show that, in 2013/14, 16 prisoners were behind 347 official grumbles. In 2015/16, just 10 cons were responsible for lodging 951 complaints.
One prisoner jailed in Glenochil for assault to severe injury was behind 381 complaints last year alone.
Our probe found many of last year’s moans were for things like the poor standard of food behind bars, laundry problems and even prison clothing.
The highest number
of grievances related to the “prison regime”, which accounted for 164 complaints.
That was followed by 144 complaints about “confidential access”, 126 about prison staff and 108 about prisoner correspondence.
The serial moaners are imprisoned in just six of Scotland’s 15 jails – Shotts, Glenochil, Addiewell, Edinburgh, Kilmarnock and Low Moss.
Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary Douglas Ross said legitimate grievances “should be listened to and acted upon”.
However, he added: “It’s pretty obvious this gang of serial complainers are either at it, or trying to cause as much inconvenience to the system as possible. That compromises the integrity of prisoner complaints in general, and is a huge waste of time and resources.
“Perhaps these individuals should spend less time playing the system and more time focusing on rehabilitating themselves for life on the outside.”
In recent years the total number of complaints from the prison estate has averaged around 10,000 a year. That means the 10 prisoners could be behind up to 10% of all officially lodged complaints.
The Scottish Prison Service said the process for handling complaints was set out in legislation.
Its spokeswoman said: “It’s right that people have the ability to complain and they can often help us identify shortcomings in the system.”