THE Scottish Prison Service has been asked to find alternatives to Scotland's only women's prison.
The closure of Cornton Vale was recommended in a report on female offending published in April.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has said a major shake-up of the way the criminal justice system deals with women offenders will begin immediately.
The Scottish Government says it accepts 33 of the 37 recommendations of the Commission on Women Offenders report written by former Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angiolini, and will also examine the remaining four recommendations in more detail.
The commission said the jail, near Stirling, should be replaced with a smaller specialist prison for long-term and high-risk offenders, as well as regional units to hold short-term and remand prisoners.
It follows inspection reports highlighting overcrowding and other problems at Cornton Vale.
Mr MacAskill said: "The commission's recommendations are ambitious and provide a challenge not just to the Scottish Government and to our public services more widely, but to Scottish society as a whole.
"Changes to our prison estate cannot be delivered quickly or cheaply."
Labour justice spokesman Lewis Macdonald MSP said: "It is regrettable that it has taken this long for Kenny MacAskill to be shaken into action, despite incredibly worrying reports about Cornton Vale."
Liberal Democrat justice spokeswoman Alison McInnes MSP said: "We need a strong and concerted effort from the Scottish Government to implement the necessary changes."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article