As a response to the increasing need for providing the Scottish prison population with social care support, the Scottish Government commissioned Alma Economics to assess the nature and prevalence of social care needs among people in custody.

Our team carried out a comprehensive review of existing evidence and interviewed Scottish Prison Service officials, Prison Governors and NHS and social care professionals to understand key drivers of social care needs and challenges in providing comprehensive support.

Following this, we developed a novel probability model to produce detailed quantitative estimates of the number of people in prison in need of social care, disaggregated by age, gender, and prisoner status. 

➥ The full report is available on the Scottish Government website.