A POSTCODE area of Scotland’s “wealthiest” city tops the list of places which produce the most female prisoners.
Despite having some of the highest average salaries in Scotland, Aberdeen’s AB16 postcode – centered on Cumming’s Park – produced eight females who are currently behind bars.
Another eight women from the DD2 postcode, which covers the west of Dundee, are presently in jail for offences.
Five postcodes, including EH12 which covers Liberton and Craigmillar in Edinburgh, and KA3, which includes parts of Kilmarnock, are tied in second place with six inmates each.
The figures were revealed by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) following a Freedom of Information request.
Many Scottish postcodes do not feature at all since they have not produced any female prisoners in the past few years.
The figures cover convicted female prisoners in custody, all of whom are housed at HMP Cornton Vale in Stirling, HMP Grampian in Aberdeenshire, HMP Edinburgh or HMP Greenock.
They reveal that a postcode’s population size and social demographic does not necessarily correlate to the number of prisoners produced.
The KA postcode, which covers Kilmarnock and parts of Ayrshire, only accounts for 7.5% of Scotland’s total population, but produced 48 prisoners -16.5% of the women currently serving time.
The DD5 postcode, which includes Broughty Ferry, a well-heeled suburb in Dundee, also produced two female prisoners while some parts of Glasgow produced none.
There is currently one female in jail who is listed as having “no postcode”.
In 2013, a woman from the DD2 postcode in Dundee was caught with a package of brown powder sticking out of her cleavage in one of the city’s pubs.
Valerie Malone, of Elders Court, was found with nearly £7,000 worth of heroin and sentenced to three years imprisonment.
Another woman from the same postcode was jailed after being found guilty of embezzling £55,000 from a hospital charity fund.
Lorraine Warden, of Muirhead, was jailed for 16 months in 2015 after forging the signature of a doctor at Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital to steal the sum of money.
A woman from the KA postcode was sentenced after attacking a 94-year-old man by pulling him to the ground and punching him.
Lorraine Murray, of Bank Street, pleaded guilty at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court in April 2016 and was sentenced to six months behind bars.
Another recent FOI revealed the postcodes that produce the most young criminals in Scotland.
Worst is the ML2 postcode covering Wishaw, South Lanarkshire, which produced 113 jail inmates aged under 21 over the past four years.
Next is the nearby G72 postcode, covering Blantyre and Cambuslang, also in South Lanarkshire, from where 90 youngsters were jailed between 2012 and 2015.
And third place went to the G81 postcode – Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, from where 82 young people ended up behind bars in the past four years.
In 2005, a groundbreaking study by former Barlinnie prison governor Roger Houchin showed how many people were sent to jail from each of Scotland’s 1,200 local authority wards.
He found that half of all people in jail in Scotland came from the poorest 155 council wards.
And a quarter of all inmates came from just 53 of those wards, with 35 of those wards in Glasgow.
