It has been revealed that two Edinburgh inmates were accidentally released from prison due to “human error.”
The two prisoners were released from HMP Edinburgh in 2021/2022 before being put back into jail after mistakes were made by officials.
It is believed that the two prisoners who were being held at the Stenhouse Road jail were non-violent offenders and were quickly taken back to the penitentiary.
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This is not an isolated incident as The Scottish Daily Express reports that other inmates across Scotland have also been unintentionally released.
It has been confirmed by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) that in total, nine prisoners were released by accident over the last five years.
This has led to calls for the Scottish government to help the SPS ensure that they do not release prisoners by accident into the community, especially ones with convictions for violence.
Scottish Conservative, shadow justice secretary, Jamie Greene told the Scottish Daily Express: "The SNP government have previously made horrendous blunders when assessing dangerous prisoners which potentially put the public at risk.
“Now we discover violent criminals have also been released back into our communities which is deeply alarming. It is nothing short of a miracle that these criminals were caught and that they didn’t cause any harm to the public.
“Serious questions must be answered as to how this was not just a one-off and what robust measures are in place to avoid it ever occurring again.”
However, two offenders of violent offences were released from prisons in Scotland.
The years with the most escapees was 2018-19 and 2022-23 with three each. Surprisingly, during the height of the covid pandemic (2020-21) no offenders were wrongly let out of prison.
An SPS Spokesperson said, “Every year, approximately 30,000 warrants are processed and 10,000 convicted individuals are released from custody. Whilst we are never complacent, the statistics show that these errors represent a very small proportion.
"When a release in error occurs, we work closely with Police Scotland to ensure that the individual is located and returned to custody.
"All liberations made in error are reviewed internally."
The Scottish Government has been approached for comment.
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