Plans for Scottish prisons will see two new detention centres built and community jails set up across the country.

The Scotsman newspaper has reported that the measures will replace HMP Cornton Vale and be used for female prisoners.

Expected to be open by 2015, the prisons will cost £20m in total of Scottish Government capital funds.

The proposals appear in a consultation document produced by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), after a series of reports criticising facilities at 1970s-built Cornton Vale.

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The Scottish Government’s Commission on Women Offenders found in April that the prison was "not fit for purpose" due to overcrowding, lack of constructive activity and a failure to tackle mental health problems among inmates.

When the new buildings are complete, units at Edinburgh and Greenock will be used for serious criminals while community jails including Peterhead and Inverness will house those on remand or whose offences are less serious.

But longer-term plans for a new purpose-built "national" women's prison may not come to fruition, as there is not enough money to build the jail envisaged.

The SPS report ‘Women in Custody’ said its proposals "deliver a better regime for women offenders as early as possible” within the boundaries of what is “realistically achievable".

It stated: "The SPS does not have the resources to build a new national prison for women" but stated that the new Greenock and Edinburgh jails combined would "in effect provide a national prison".

(NE)