Scottish prisons aren’t all inspected the way prisons in England & Wales are. HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland (HMIPS) still carries out full inspections at some establishments, rating performance against nine Standards (from Good down to Unacceptable), but for most prisons it now monitors continuously through the year instead, using local volunteer Independent Prison Monitors (IPMs) who report their findings annually rather than through a single inspection visit.
HMIPS’s most recent monitoring report for HMP Edinburgh covers 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, based on 92 visits and 380 hours of monitoring – both up sharply on the year before. The report is blunt: “the IPM story of HMP Edinburgh for the year would be one of a prison trying in almost impossible circumstances”, citing “too many prisoners and too complex a prisoner population for the physical infrastructure in place”, across five separate categories of prisoner.
Cells designed for one prisoner continued to be used to hold two – monitors called this “a scandal in 2025” – and healthcare was the single biggest concern prisoners raised, though waiting lists improved for much of the year before some issues re-emerged. Purposeful activity could only ever be offered to fewer than half of those held there, though the amount delivered had increased since the previous report. On a more positive note, the prison “felt calm and well-run”, with violence lower than in some comparable populations, and monitors singled out staff as “their greatest asset”.
To read the full report, go to the HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland website or follow the link below:
- IPM Annual Monitoring Report (PDF), HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland, covering 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025