THE SNP Government will bring forward proposals over “remand and release” of prisoners as the Justice Secretary admitted jails are braced for more overcrowding as the court backlog is resolved.

Justice Secretary Keith Brown told MSPs that jails are expecting numbers of prisoners to swell as courts work their way through a huge backlog in cases caused by the pandemic.

But Mr Brown insisted that he did not expect to get to a point where prisoners are released because the jail estate cannot cope with the numbers – as has been done in California and Texas.

Speaking at Holyrood’s Criminal Justice Committee, Mr Brown, said the Scottish Government will be bringing forward proposals “very shortly with relation to remand and release”.

He added: “It is about sending the right people that need to be in prison who will benefit from being in prison and not from an alternative diversion. That’s got to be part of the calculation you would make.

“It’s hard to make that calculation on what the future prison population should be. In any event, we shouldn't end up in a situation where we don’t have the capacity.

“That has happened in the past, for example, I think Texas released, I think, tens of thousands of prisoners overnight including many which had been convicted for drugs offences because they could not cope with the prisoner population.”

Tory MSP Jamie Greene warned that given it can take many years to build new prisons, would the SNP Government’s budget be “geared up to the potential and quite sharp immediate rise in the prison population” as courts work through the backlog of pending cases.

Mr Brown said the current prison population is around 7,750 inmates and added that a “substantial increase in remand”, due to the hold-up ion cases is “producing a big demand on prisons”.

He added: “As the backlog is cleared, that will increase the number of convicted prisoners and that will increase the population.”

The Justice Secretary added that efforts will be made to “try and reduce those going to prison where that’s appropriate for that to happen”, including looking at remand and bail and release.

He added: “We’ll bring forward proposals for consultation on that very shortly.

“We keep a very close eye on the population. We know an increase is coming but we know, also, there are things we can do – not least in relation to remand and also people that may benefit from a different kind of disposal – whether that’s community justice, whether its in terms of rehabilitation or mental health treatment.

“Getting the right people in prison is one thing but it’s our responsibility to house who the courts send to prison.”

Mr Greene suggested that there is “only so much space you can magic in a prison estate until you start getting into an overcrowding situation”, asking the minister is he envisages a situation where officials “simply have to release people because of over-population".

But Mr Brown said: “We want to avoid that.”

He added: “We want to try and remain in control of this rather than be told. I think it’s important we do try and anticipate that as best we can.”

Mr Brown told MSPs that due to the “backlog of the cases and the nature of the cases”, including many cases of a sexual nature, “that will result in more people being in prison”.