Prison’s kosher crackdown on teatime cheats

‘Slightly more bureaucratic’

IT was an improbable scam inspired by a US TV drama.

But prison chiefs have finally clamped down on inmates who claim to be Jewish in order to access better meals.

An influx of ‘Jewish’ inmates in 201 saw the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) forced to spend just under £6 0 extra every day on kosher food – more than £240,000 a year.

Prisoners were believed to be mimicking a far-fetched plotline from hit comedy Orange is the New Black, in which a jailed character converts to Judaism to get ‘better quality food’.

SPS chiefs have now introduced a stricter registration process for those requesting kosher meals.

A kosher diet forbids pork and shellfish and also means that meat cannot beprepared alongside any dairy products.

Standard prison meals cost around £2 for each inmate, while the kosher equivalent is £8 per head. During the 2013-14 financial year official figures showed there were only nine Jewish prisoners in all 15 of Scotland’s jails.

But by 201 an inspection of HMP Edinburgh found 111 prisoners identified as Jewish – 13 per cent of its population.

The inspection report said: ‘SPS and prison management need to review this situation with some urgency.’

Since the SPS launched an investigation into the issue in 201 , the number of inmates claiming kosher meals at HMP Edinburgh has fallen by threequarters and the cost of feeding inmates at the jail dropped by £80,000 in the last year.

A spokesman for theScottish Prison Service said: ‘For several years, we had a number of people who claimed to be Jewish and were only able to eat a kosher diet when in all probability they weren’t.

‘If someone requires a kosher diet they will get it but when we tightened up the requirements and made it slightly more bureaucratic, people suddenly decided they (didn’t).’