§ 8. Mr. Woodburnasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will delay the building of more prisons till he has considered the possibility of discriminating among prisoners, with a view to the extension of a parole system which can more usefully and economically employ suitable types of convicted prisoners outside prison walls.
§ Mr. MaclayThe prison building programme for the next few years, which I described in reply to a Question from the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) on 12th April, does not include provision for any new prison for convicted prisoners.
I shall consider whether larger numbers of prisoners can be selected for training in open conditions and whether the existing parole system under which selected prisoners go to outside work as a final stage in their training can be extended.
§ Mr. WoodburnIn view of the many types of persons who become convicts, and the general assumption that they are all violent criminals, would it not be wise to set up some organisation which could examine this whole problem of the different types of prisoner to see whether, to avoid cluttering people up in these cells, there could not be some more open-air treatment of them, either on parole or under varying degrees of supervision?
§ Mr. MaclayAs I indicated in my Answer, I am very conscious of this problem and we are trying to examine carefully what more can be done in the direction to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.