Dear
@scotgov,
Last week I turned up at HMP Edinburgh for Mental Health Awareness Week.
I’ve worked closely with the prison service for a couple of years now and all the staff I’ve met, and worked with, have been amazing. The job they do, under very difficult circumstances, is to be admired.
However, the government need to do more. I don’t ever make political posts but I’ve seen, up close, the issues affecting our prison services and the resources are stretched to its limits.
In the past I have received a wee bit of stick for ‘entertaining’ prisoners. I’m not there to ‘entertain’ I’m there to tell my story and to hopefully inspire change and if my story helps one person then it’s worth doing.
The mental health crisis within our prison service is massive and if we don’t deal with it then we’ll continue to see re-offending which in turn means our prison services will continue to be at breaking point.
The staff are doing their bit but once the inmates are out there’s very little help for them on the outside world.
In my opinion….from the many stories I’ve heard…..it’s just not good enough and we need to do more.
Again, I want to emphasise, the staff at every prison I have worked with have been outstanding.
The staff in Edinburgh, last week, put in a mammoth effort to mark Mental Health Awareness Week, running 23 different events across the week for over 200 individuals in custody.
I was there one day and former Hibs striker Dwight Gale turned up the day after.
There’s many people stepping up to help and it’s time that
@scotgov did the same. It’s not good enough.
As always….to the prison service….I’m always available to pop in and help in anyway I can.
Ewen