Criminal Justice in Scotland's Parliament

This part of the site is a weekly review of criminal justice business at Holyrood starting, in its present format, from September 2006. The page is supported by a grant awarded by the Clarke Foundation for Legal Education and is written by our Parliament correspondent, Katrina Morrison.

New: "Handy guide to criminal justice in the Scottish Parliament June 2007 - August 2008".

Glossary: 'Law Officers' = the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General for Scotland. 'SPICe' = Scottish Parliament Information Centre

It is possible to view Committee business on the 'Holyrood. TV' archive for up to a month following the date of the meeting.

---

Parliamentary Report: 13th - 17th November

Amongst the issues discussed in Committees this week was the sentencing of offenders and the financial implications of the Custodial Weapons and Sentences Bill. There was also evidence taken from the United States via videolink as part of the enquiry into the management of child sex offenders. Summary justice reform was the focus in consideration of the Criminal Procedures (etc) Bill. 

Committees

As the Custodial Weapons and Sentences Bill continues its way through Parliament, on Tuesday it was the turn of the Finance Committee to examine the Financial Memorandum of the Bill in greater detail. Evidence was given by the Scottish Prison Service and Executive officials. Written submissions have been received from the SPS, ACPOS, COSLA, the Crown Office and PF service, and the Scottish Legal Aid Board.
The SPS estimates that the additional running costs will amount to £37-55m p.a. by year 5 and a capital provision of £25.5-162.2m. These resources would provide for the expected additional 700-1100 prisoners per day over the same time frame.
COSLA considers that the memorandum’s estimates do not adequately account for the costs which local authorities will incur. Provision of around £2000 per prisoner would not be sufficient, and estimated that the unit cost for supporting a high risk offender averages nearer £5,000 and for lower risk offenders the unit cost is closer to £3,500, with a requirement for around £10m to oversee those subject to supervision over 6 months alone.
You can access all the written submissions here (60-74).

SPS witnesses reviewed how extra investment they are currently receiving is being used to extend prison capacity and were questioned on how they intend to manage the projected increase in prison population that is expected, even without the introduction of this Bill. Executive officials gave evidence on plans to build two new prisons, the first to open late 2008. The large variation in their projection of the potential cost of the Bill, from between £25 million up to £162 million, is due to all the variables in sentencing in the Bill, that are decided by the judiciary and the Parole Board. Another possibility in the variance in the estimate was whether the prisons would be publicly or privately funded, and there was agreement that the Committee would seek further information on this matter as the Executive were unable to provide it at the meeting.
You can read the full transcripts of the meeting here, or you can watch the meeting on Holyrood.TV here.

On Monday, the Justice 2 Sub Committee continued its inquiry into the monitoring and treatment of child sex offenders. Their remit includes looking at notification to communities of child sex offenders within their locality; the way in which housing is allocated to sex offenders; whether steps need to be taken to distinguish sexual offences against children from such offences against adults; and whether changes need to be made to the way in which sexual offences against children are considered and disposed of by the courts, and, whether adequate sentencing options exist. The Committee has so far taken a wide range of evidence from experts and practitioners in the field. They have also heard from the mother of a boy who was murdered by a known sex offender who was living locally who has campaigned for this inquiry.

Evidence was taken via video link from the United States, where various systems of public notification of sex offenders already exist. Witnesses stated that they did not have evidence as whether this had any effect on levels of offending or not, and that their priority was to ensure the community had a feeling of safety. Public notification has not lead to any vigilante attacks against offenders, and that the offenders are encouraged to attend community meetings, in order to diminish the chances of this occurring. The political climate in the US favours the public sharing of this sort of information (criminal records for all offenders are widely available to the public throughout the country).
You can read the full transcripts of this interesting meeting here, or you can watch the meeting on Holyrood.TV here

The next morning, the Committee met again to interview the Justice Minister, Cathy Jamieson, and other officials from the Justice and the Housing Departments. In her written submission, the Justice Minister stated a commitment to ensure the protection of children from sex offenders and reviewed the context of recent policy and legislative changes, including the introduction of the new multi agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) in 2007. Current policy on notification is based on both the Cosgrove and MacLean Committees and the review by Professor Irving. Widespread disclosure of information about these offenders would not necessarily enhance public safety, but there may be cases where information could be disclosed to selected third parties, and these would be decided by the police. Regarding the classification of sex offenders, she said it would not be prudent to create separate classifications of those who commit offences against adults and against children. Finally, addressing sentencing and legislation, she outlined the range of disposals available for child sex offenders, including the recently introduced Order for Lifelong Restriction. You can read her written submission here

This was the first meeting to take place since the stories appeared in the press in which the Executive appeared to confirm they going to implement a system of public notification for child sex offenders, going against most of the evidence the Committee has heard, and before they have published their report, due out within the month (see last week’s Parliamentary report). The Committee wasted no time in asking the Justice Minister about the apparent discrepancies between her written submission and statements released to the press by the First Minister, and letting her know they were displeased the way the story had been given to the press. She said the Executive had not concluded how best to legislate in this area, and she distanced the Justice Department from the statement by saying that that the reports had not come from the Executive, but rather they were from the First Minister’s spokesperson, and they were part of a party-political policy development process. However, she remained open minded about the matter and said she was looking forward to hearing what the Committee’s inquiry would suggest. You can read the full transcripts of the meeting here, or you can watch the meeting on Holyrood.tv here. You can also read the coverage in the press here.

On Wednesday the Justice 1 Committee met to conclude its final stage consideration of the amendments to the Criminal Proceedings etc Bill at Stage 2. If you haven’t already done so, you can access the Bill and all the helpful SPICe documents here. The amendments under discussion today concerned altering the sentencing powers in summary cases, by increasing the maximum sentence which can be imposed for certain offences, both in terms of times in custody, level of fine, and extending the offences for which a fixed penalty notices can be imposed. Amendments to the section of the Bill which introduces a new ‘compensation offer’, which would act as a diversion from prosecution, in which the accused would have the option of paying a sum to the victim of up to £5000, were also discussed. You can read the full minutes of the meeting here, or watch the meeting on Holyrood.TV here.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Justice 2 Committee met to continue taking evidence on the general principles of the Custodial Sentences and Weapons Bill, which seeks to make changes to the way that knives and blades are licensed and the way custodial sentences are managed, the biggest change of which would be to make an end to the system of automatic early release. Again, if you haven’t already done so, you can access the Bill, and the SPICe guides here.

The first panel before the Committee today contained speakers from Victim Support Scotland and from SACRO (Safeguarding Communities – Reducing Offending).

In their written submission, Victim Support Scotland said that two of their main policy objectives were to demystify the criminal justice process to the general public, and to make sentencing more transparent. They said they would like protection of the public, including the views and opinions of the victim, to be taken into account by both the court and the Parole Board, and that the criminal justice system should fulfil society’s expectation of punishment and deterrence. Doing this would, they argue, increase the public’s faith and trust in the system. They supported the use of release on licence after appropriate risk assessment, and said that Ministers must take public interest account when revoking a licence. However, they said that the current threshold of a sentence of four years or more before a victim qualifies to be given information about offenders’ sentence under the ‘victim notification scheme’ is too high, and that more victims should be eligible to receive this information. You can read their written submission in full here.

During questioning, the speaker from victim support said the primary concern of victims is the need for more information, especially in the run up to the release of the offender, although it was felt that victims wanted the whole justice system to be more transparent, not just sentencing. There were encouraging comments highlighting that research shows that what the majority of victims want is not necessarily more punishment, but for offenders to not re-offend, and that is where resources should be diverted. However, there was still case for deterrence and punishment in some cases, and sentences should strike a balance. He said that it was not that community penalties could not be sold to victims as a means of reducing crime, but that what would be required would be engaging with victims, and actively letting them know how community disposals work, something which does not currently happen. There was significant disquiet about the effect of the Bill on the prison population.

SACRO argued that if one of the Bill’s aims was to protect the public, then it would be more prudent to spend money on through-care and work in the communities as this would be more likely to reduce re-offending. There were also concerns that the very high volume of risk assessment required in this Bill would necessarily mean that it could not be done in a thorough or meaningful way. There was also a consensus that short prison sentences were not a good use of resources, and of little benefit in terms of rehabilitating the offender. There was an acknowledgement that, at present, community penalties are not generally viewed by the public as proper punishment. There were also discussions about the conditions under which licences should be revoked, and the difficulties that would face the system if a return to prison would be automatic if licence were to be breached.

On the next panel to give evidence were academics from the universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde, and the director of the Director of the Criminal Justice Social Work Development Centre. The written submission from Cyrus Tata, of the Centre for Sentencing Research in the University of Strathclyde argued that the Bill would not meet its stated aims of either making the system more transparent and improving the public’s confidence in the criminal justice process, or to increase public protection by ending automatic early release. He argued that there was little rational sense in making the sentencer have to make two decisions when sentencing, namely, the overall headline sentence, and also the point at which they should be released. If an offender is deemed to be a greater risk to the public, the time spent in custody is increased at the expense of their time in the community. This would have the paradoxical effect of making many of those offenders and communities who most need it, to be subject to reduced community supervision. He also argued that ‘tailored’ community provisions would be unlikely to be adequate for those serving short sentences and that public protection is not best achieved by an ever growing prison population. You can read this submission here.

During questioning, there was a recognition that the Bill was well intentioned in that it seeks to add greater clarify in sentences to the public. However, there were concerns that the Bill as it currently stands would not deliver this. That the ‘community’ part of a sentence was, for the first time, to be seen as part of the headline sentence, was welcomed. However, there were concerns that the system would not be able to deal with the enormous increase in work that would result from the introduction of the Bill, and that by creating a new set of unmanageable public expectations in the public, the aim of increasing confidence in the system of community penalties was bound to fail.

A recurring theme throughout all the evidence the Committee heard was the use and usefulness of short prison sentences. Interesting data shown to the Committee showed that Scotland has one of the lowest average times spent in prison in Europe (1.9 months), despite having one of the overall highest prison populations, meaning we hand out a very high number of short sentences. This is problematic in terms of managing a prison and providing a meaningful chance to do anything positive.

Finally there were discussion as to the panel’s views of the appropriate level at which they thought supervision in the community should be attached to sentences. The Bill states that this should occur in sentences of 15 days or more. This was felt to be wildly unrealistic in terms of resources available, and would divert attention away from the more serious offenders who pose greater public risk, and that little meaningful work can be done with offenders in such a short time frame anyway. Thresholds of 12 or 15 months were suggested.
You can read the full transcripts of this meeting here, or you can watch it on Holyrood.TV here.

On Wednesday morning, the Education Committee continued to take evidence as part of its examination of the general principles of the Protection of Vulnerable Groups Bill, which aims to prevent unsuitable people working with children and protected adults. Significant concerns have emerged in the evidence as to the cost and possible detrimental effect on levels of volunteering that the disclosure measures proposed would have. You can access the Bill and all accompanying documents, here.

The Committee took evidence from, amongst others, ACPOS, the Association of Directors of Education and the Association of Directors of Social Work, and from COSLA. ACPOS supports the Bill and welcomed the new powers it gave police in term of the sharing of information, though there were several issues related to this that required further scrutiny. For more detail you can read this submission here.

COSLA, and the Association of Directors of Education and Social Work argued that there was no need for two separate lists, one for children and another for ‘vulnerable adults’, and that it was disingenuous to imply that participation of the scheme is voluntary as it would in effect become impossible to get employment with young people without submitting to the new vetting procedures. They also argued that if an individual was to be taken off a list of unsuitable people, there should none the less be a record that they had once been on it. They also argued that there was a need to make sure the legislation would cover those employed under services which had been contracted out. During the meeting, there were calls to keep things in perspective, that what was in dispute was not the end desire of the Bill, which is to protect vulnerable groups; rather it was whether the means suggested in the Bill are necessary, and the need to create a system that was manageable was the most important factor. You can read the full transcripts of the meeting here, or watch the meeting on Holyrood.TV here, and read the press coverage, here.

Chamber

There were no justice debates in the Chamber this week; however, there were a number of justice related questions.

During First Minister’s Questions, Jack McConnell was asked about the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration’s annual review, which revealed an increase in the number of young people reported for offending. The First Minister argued that the increase in numbers was due to the increased amount of resources made available to the SCRA. In light of the fact that the numbers, according to the report, has gone up by 16%, he was goaded by an SNP member for his pledge, made in 2004, to cut the numbers of persistent young offenders by 10% by March this year, a pledge he claimed was “achievable”.  You can read this exchange here, and you can read the press stories regarding the SCRA report here.

Next it was the Conservative’s turn to attack the First Minister over his plans for the early release of prisoners, which relates to the Custodial Weapons and Sentencing Bill currently in its stage 1 Committee phase (see above). Annabel Goldie and the First Minister engaged in a round of competing ‘toughness’. Mr McConnell said that the Bill would mean offenders actually spending more time in custody than the sentencer had originally indicated, and Ms Goldie saying that for the first time, a sentence will be made up of a mixture of a period in the community as well as in custody, commenting that this was bound to displease victims (although it is interesting to see what Victim Support said about the Bill in the Justice 2 Committee meeting, see above). Read this exchange here.

The First Minister was also asked questions about efforts to reduce Scotland’s high rate of knife crime. Read this question here.

Amongst the written questions this week were questions about numbers of sexual offences prosecuted over the last 7 years, the numbers of deaths by firearms and stabbings, youth justice, and information held that can be accessed as part of disclosure checks. They can all be accessed here.

Posted by KM on Fri 24th Nov 2006 at 2:54 pm
Courts Procurators Fiscal Legislation Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Bill Criminal Proceedings etc (Reform) (Scotland) Bill Custodial Sentences and Weapons Bill • Permalink • Tell-a-Friend

Page 73 of 91 pages « First  <  71 72 73 74 75 >  Last »