Inmates leave prison with nowhere to go

Thousands of people leave prison only to become homeless as soon as they are back on the streets, new figures show. In the last two years, councils received 3,814 homeless applications from people identified as leaving prison, which the Lib Dems claim equates to around one in five prisoners. Earlier this year, the HM Inspectorate of Prisons reported that there were “too many people who, on their day of liberation, do not know where they will be living.” A consequence of this was a rise in reoffending rates. Scottish Lib Dem justice spokesman Liam McArthur MSP called for the expansion of care for inmates. He said: “These new figures show thousands of people are being sent on their way with nowhere stable to live. “That’s disgraceful and irresponsible because we know this vastly increases the chance of their reoffending and undoing the good work done while they are in prison. “Every single person should have seamless help with housing, employment and healthcare. “If they end up reoffending to get a warm bed for the night or food for dinner then that is an appalling failure. “Inspectors have previously uncovered that a third of people at one institution didn’t have an address to go to on release. “The system clearly isn’t up to scratch.”