[balti]

This should blow your mind!

Link: https://researchbriefings.files.parl...34/SN04334.pdf

Contributing Authors
Helena Carthew
Image Credits
Lewis Clarke / Princetown : HM Prison Dartmoor

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Religion

At the end of June 2023, just under half of the prison population was of a
Christian faith (44%) – a decrease of 14 percentage points compared with
June 2002. The proportion of Muslim prisoners has increased from 8% in 2002
to 18% in 2022. The proportion of prisoners with no religion in 2023 (31%) was
roughly the same as in 2002

Ethnicity and Religion

The latest statistics on the ethnicity of prisoners are for the year 2021/22 and
the latest on religion are for 2013/14.
Ethnicity
As of 2021/22, the Scottish prison population was just under 95% White. Asian
ethnicities accounted for 1.9%, Black ethnicities for 1.1%, and Mixed or other
ethnicities for 1.6%. As the chart shows, people of Asian ethnicities were
slightly under-represented and people of Black or mixed ethnicities were
over-represented in comparison with the general population.


As of 30 June 2013 just over 4,600 prisoners (58% of the prison population) in
Scotland indicated that they held religious beliefs. Of these, 93% were
Christian (of various denominations). Muslim prisoners accounted for 4.4%.
Together Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish, Hindu and other religions accounted for
2.7% of the religious prison population. Just over 3,270 prisoners (42% of the
prison population) held no religious beliefs.

The proportion of Muslims among the prison population was greater than that
amongst the general population. According to the 2011 Census 26, Muslims
accounted for around 1.2% of the Scottish population aged 15 and over. In
prison the proportion was over twice that at 2.5%. Aside from the “other”
grouping, no other religion had a higher proportion of representation in
prisons than among the general population. Individuals with no religious
identity accounted for around 41% of the general population and just over
41% of the prison population.

Cost per prisoner

The cost per prison place and cost per prisoner in England and Wales are
published in the Ministry of Justice’s Prison and Probation Performance
Statistics collection. These include the cost per prisoner at individual
establishments.
The Ministry of Justice has several different methods of estimating the
average cost per prisoner. The 2021-22 figures show that in England and
Wales:
• The average direct cost per prisoner in was £31,476 but taking into
account all resource expenditure the overall cost per prisoner was
£47,434. 31
• The average direct cost per prison place in was £30,987 but taking
into account all resource expenditure the overall cost per place was
£46,696.
In Scotland, the Prison Service publishes the annual cost of prison in its
Annual Report and Accounts. In 2021/22, the average annual cost per prison
place in Scotland was £41,858. The cost per prison place on a resource
accounting basis (including depreciation and impairment charges) was
£46,892. 32