SNP Justice Secretary\u00a0Kenny MacAskill’s decision to close Noranside Prison is badly thought out and must be reconsidered.<\/p>\n
Rumours of the planned closure of Noranside had been rejected as \u201cgroundless\u201d by the SNP Government in late November.\u00a0Now we hear the opposite is true. \u00a0This is the worst possible Christmas present from the SNP Government for the 55 employees at Noranside and their families.<\/p>\n
It will also be a blow to the many shops and businesses in Forfar and Angus who supply the prison. \u00a0To hear this in the week leading up to Christmas could hardly be worse.<\/p>\n
Noranside has been underused recently, purely because of Mr MacAskill’s own decisions. We are now hearing that many long term prisoners are already being released directly to the community, rather than via open prisons such as Noranside. \u00a0There has to be a real worry about public safety following this ill judged decision.<\/p>\n
Angus Cllr David May also commented:<\/p>\n
\n“It is all very well for the SNP minister to say there will be no compulsory redundancies but it is a fact that either the staff will have to move and leave Angus or they will lose their jobs. So much for the assurance that they will be redeployed as the minister is really giving those at Noranside the worst possible Christmas present”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Local Cllr Alison Andrews\u00a0is on the visiting committee of the prison, and was told recently that there was no chance it was in line for\u00a0closure.<\/p>\n
\n“The work that goes on at Noranside is absolutely brilliant.\u00a0Some of these prisoners have been locked up for 20 years or\u00a0more and it’s vital that we give them some\u00a0preparation and training\u00a0before they go back to life outside.”<\/p>\n
“If that layer is removed from of the justice system, prisoners will be\u00a0released directly from closed institutions after years and years,\u00a0straight out into a completely different world for them. \u00a0Their chances of coping with these huge changes are much better if they have had the excellent support, training and preparation from Noranside.”<\/p>\n
“I know for a fact that\u00a0reoffending rates\u00a0are not as high among those who have had the opportunity to be in an\u00a0open prison.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Mrs Andrews is also worried about\u00a0the future of civilian employees and the way this \u00a0directly affect them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The SNP Justice Minister, Kenny Macaskill’s decision to close Noranside Prison, despite earlier assurances is a major blow for effective justice and the local economy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[96,130],"tags":[203,222,115,132,129,106],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VHxS-68","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sanjaysamani.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sanjaysamani.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sanjaysamani.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sanjaysamani.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sanjaysamani.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/sanjaysamani.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385,"href":"http:\/\/sanjaysamani.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sanjaysamani.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sanjaysamani.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sanjaysamani.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}