SCOTTISH prisoners have been put at risk as decades-old human rights recommendations go unmet, according to a new report published today.

The joint study by the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and the UK National Preventative Mechanism (NPM) looked at prisons and mental health settings in Scotland.

A staggering 83 per cent of recommendations first made in the 1990s to meet basic human rights in prisons had yet to be delivered, with little to no progress being made in the last decade, it found.

Twenty-four recommendations had showed little progress, just five had shown acceptable progress — and none was complete.

The report found that many prisoners failed to get the minimum recommended two hours’ human contact a day, while the lack of a secure psychiatric unit for female prisoners saw many forced to travel more than 300 miles to a facility in England.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland this morning, report author Cathy Asante hit out at a lack of “swift action.”

She said: “Fundamentally, we’re not seeing the results change, so the actual outcomes for people who are in these situations are not materially changing and some of them are getting worse.

“The rate of deaths in Scotland’s prisons is still one of the highest in western Europe, so fundamentally we need to see the commitments and the words turned into action that changes the outcomes for people on the ground.”

SHRC’s Shelley Gray commented: “The level of inaction and delay is no longer acceptable and we want to see these important human rights concerns addressed by the Scottish government with the urgency they deserve.”

Speaking on the same programme, SNP Justice Secretary Angela Constance said the report “will be given full and careful consideration.”