Scottish prisons crack down on kosher scam

TWO YEARS ago, prison inspectors demanded a probe into skyrocketing food budgets — with more than 100 offenders on a strictly-kosher diet at HMP Edinburgh alone, which spent almost £1m on kosher food in 2017.

But in 2016, only nine Scottish Prison Service (SPS) inmates identified as Jewish.

The ploy to receive kosher meals is thought to have been inspired by a storyline in prison drama Orange is the New Black. A prison source told The Times: “The number of Jewish prisoners is negligible...

“Ever since one guy converted to Judaism we’ve seen a huge rise in the number claiming to be Jewish as they saw the meals were better.”

The SPS said guidelines have been introduced to the process of declaring a religious conversion, prompting a 75 per cent fall in the number of people receiving kosher meals.

Tom Fox, of the SPS, said: “We had a number of people who claimed to be Jewish and [in need of] need kosher meals and in all probability weren’t...

“Basically, the system before was that people said they were Jewish so required a kosher diet, and in some places they received it. 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 weren’t.”