Row over Tories' jail figures
Executive says flawed analysis behind claim that more should be jailed
Scottish Conservatives say that they have evidence that prison works and more criminals should be incarcerated.
They claim an analysis of statistics since 1950 shows the crime rate in Scotland is lowest when the number of criminals sent to jail is high.
According to the figures, in 1969 there were 31 prisoners per 1,000 recorded crimes in Scotland and a crime rate of three per 100 people.
In 2003 when there were 16 prisoners per 1,000 recorded crimes, the crime rate was 8.1 per 100 people.
However the Executive said that the Conservatives' analysis was "statistically flawed"and they had not compared like with like: the prisoner rate per 1,000 crimes would automatically be higher when crimes were low.
Rather than compare prisoners against the amount of crime with crime per head of population, they should have compared prisoners and crime against per head of population.
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