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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The main justice events to take place this week in Parliament were a debate on penal policy in which the Justice Secretary announced the creation of an independent Prisons Commission, and the announcement by the Justice Committee of an enquiry into policing in Scotland.
The Justice Committee
The Justice Committee is to undertake an inquiry into the effective use of police resources. The remit for the inquiry is to review the use of police resources throughout Scotland, including plans by the Scottish Government to provide for an additional 1000 police officers. The Committee has issued a general call for evidence, which you can read here.
Committee members had been on visits to Cornton Vale and Barlinnie prisons the previous week. A number of Committee members spoke about their impressions following these visits in the debate on penal policy which took place in the Chamber on Thursday (see below).
Chamber
Debate on Penal Policy and Prison Commission announcement
Further announcements on penal policy were made by the Scottish Government. This is in the context of the SNP’s support both in their manifesto and in subsequent speeches for custodial sentences of six months and under to be replaced with community alternatives. However, they have so far not specified how this could work in practice; there was not a Sentencing Bill included in the recently announced legislative programme.
Given their minority status, the Government must seek policy change through means other than primary legislation. This has resulted in a relatively uncontroversial set of Bills announced in their legislative programme, and the possibility of more radical policy changes may therefore have to wait. However, the groundwork for such changes may be taking place through the creation of various reviews and commissions.
The debate on penal policy was led by the Cabinet Secretary on Thursday.
In his opening speech, Kenny MacAskill said he wanted this debate to provide ‘an opportunity to reflect’ on the challenges that the nation faced regarding penal policy. He framed his arguments by questioning why Scotland’s rate of imprisonment is so proportionally high in comparison with other Western European countries, saying ‘the Government refuses to believe that the Scottish people are inherently bad or that there is any genetic reason why we should be locking up twice as many offenders as Ireland or Norway’. He argued that the percentage of the prison population affected by mental health problems, drug and alcohol addiction and mental health difficulties, prompted the need for ‘tough questions’ to be asked.
He also pointed out contradictions in the current situation, saying that while crime has fallen over the past 10 years, the number of prisoners has increased by over 1000 during the same time. Simultaneously, public attitudes also show that the Scottish population feel as though crime is rising and that prison is not used enough.
He argued that, although community penalties are often seen as the ‘soft option’ by the public, they actually result in a lower rate of re-offending than a prison sentence does. However, he also said that prison was the correct place for serious or dangerous offenders, who may be required to serve long sentences in order to ensure the public is protected.
He commended the dedication, commitment and professionalism of the staff in the Prison Service, but he said that too much of the prison system’s energies are spent on managing the churn of prisoners serving short sentences; there is little that can be achieved in the way of lasting rehabilitation with these prisoners, and prisons are constantly working to ‘keep a lid on a difficult situation’.
He said that, for all these reasons there was a need to re-frame the debate around imprisonment, and to move away from the old arguments over ‘soft’ versus ‘tough’ sentences, saying that penal policy should instead be focused on what works. While not mentioning the ‘six months and under’ tariff, he said that for many minor offences, a short custodial sentence ‘does not constitute a smart sentence.’
When questioned on sentencing policy and judicial independence, he insisted that the Administration’s policies would in no way interfere with judicial discretion. He said that while the judiciary will always have the right to impose a short sentence should they wish to do so, his Government can say that ‘there are good reasons in relation to punishment, cost and safety why they might care to reflect on the possibility that that would not be appropriate.’
He said that although he believed it was not the intention of the previous Administration that their policy lead to such an increase in the number of people in prison, this was nonetheless the outcome, and that this direction had to be halted. He hinted at the Government’s unhappiness with the controversial Custodial Sentences and Weapons Act (although it was pointed out later in the debate that the SNP voted for it when it was going through Parliament). This Act sought to end automatic early release, but will in fact result in a very significant increase in the prison population. He said that, although supporting the principle of ending automatic and unconditional early release, it was necessary to ‘ensure that any change does not compound current problems and put intolerable pressures on prisons and justice services in the community.’ (For a critique of this legislation see Cyrus Tata’s article (CjScotland March 2007) The End to ‘Dishonesty’ in Sentencing? The Custodial Sentences Act will be Fogged by Confusion).
Consequently he has decided to establish an independent prison commission with a remit to ‘consider the purpose and use of imprisonment in contemporary Scotland’. This will look at how imprisonment fits in with the wider strategic objectives of the Government, and also to raise public awareness of the ‘options, outcomes, and costs’ of imprisonment. It will also compare the ‘underpinning rationale’ of imprisonment with current law and practice, and its impact across all of the justice system. It will also look at the impact of the yet to be implemented Custodial Sentences and Weapons Act.
This Commission is to be headed by Henry McLeish, a former First Minister and a Justice Minister.
The Labour party’s new Justice Spokesperson Pauline McNeill (the convener of the Justice 1 Committee in the previous session of Parliament) responded by welcoming the opportunity for debate and the establishment of the Commission. However, she said that Labour opposed SNP’s policies because they would ‘expose communities by moving away from short-term spells of custody to wholesale community sentencing.’ She said that their proposals would seriously undermine public confidence in the judicial system, and would fail to address public concerns about crime.
She pointed out that sentences of six months and under are imposed for offences such as housebreaking, the repeated breaking of bail conditions, and on many persistent offenders. She said the notion that such offenders may escape a custodial sentence would not be acceptable to many, and that any assurance that the Cabinet Secretary gave about not interfering with judicial discretion went against his Party’s manifesto promises on short prison sentences. She also highlighted the problem of unintended consequences such policies may create, by citing the example of Western Australia when the removal of all sentences of three months and under resulted in longer sentences being imposed. She said that prison should not only be a place to protect the public from dangerous or serious offenders, but it should also exist as a deterrent to potential future offenders. She concluded by saying that Labour was willing to ‘work constructively’ with the Administration on some issues, although there are limits to what they would agree on. Her amendment welcomed the creation of the Commission, and the continuation of community sentences and other alternatives to custody, but also noted concern about any removal of judicial discretion.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Mike Pringle, agreed about the need to reduce the number of short sentences in prison, but challenged Kenny MacAskill to provide more specific information about proposed savings from the prison estate to go into community penalties and rehabilitation. He said that a policy of replacing custodial sentences of three months and under with community penalties would be more sensible than the SNP’s preference for six months and under, and he highlighted the problem of fine defaulters receiving custodial sentences. He said he supported existing community penalties, but they had to be ‘toughened up’, and he also suggested looking at the idea of removing certain rights at weekends for those convicted of driving and similar offences. He also proposed the idea of ‘dual sentencing’ in which offenders serve part of their sentence in custody and part in the community.
The Conservative spokesperson and convener of the Justice Committee, Bill Aitken, also acknowledged there was of a need for review of imprisonment, however he cautioned over those who argued there may be one easy answer to the problem. He said that the primary drive behind prisons policy must be public safety, and any review that is carried out must not be merely an excuse to empty prisons. He highlighted the high breach rate for community disposals and argued that they had little public legitimacy. He also said that fines should be deducted directly from income and benefits as a way to reduce the number who default over payment, and he spoke of his support for specialist drug courts and questioned whether these could be rolled out nationally. He also spoke out about ‘community courts’ in New York, where community punishment is immediate and visible, and can be physically taxing if the individual is fit enough.
Members from across the Chamber used the open debate that followed as an opportunity to discuss their own views, concerns, and experiences of the prison system. There were calls for immediate funding to be given to relieve overcrowding pressure in Inverness prison, and members of the Justice Committee commented on the visits to Cornton Vale and Barlinnie prisons that they took at the beginning of the week. Several members mentioned the narrow social background that the majority of prisoners come from, and the importance of ensuring that adequate housing support exists for prisoners on release. There was wide support for the Commission across the Chamber, with one MSP saying it has the same potential for innovation and radical policy development as the Kilbrandon Commission which led to the creation of Scotland’s juvenile justice system.
At decision time, all the Members voted along party lines, apart from the Conservatives, whose coalition with the SNP gave the Justice Secretary’s motion a majority, and it was therefore passed by the Chamber.
You can read the full transcripts of this debate in the Official Report, and you can watch it on Holyrood.TV for up to one month. You can also read the press coverage in the Newsblog.
Stockline Explosion Public EnquiryLater that afternoon there was a short debate in the Chamber about Corporate Homicide legislation and the need for a public inquiry into the ‘Stockline’ explosion which killed 9 people in 2004. The two companies involved were charged with health and safety offences and fined £220,000 each, after admitting responsibility in court.
The debate in the Chamber was lead by Patricia Ferguson, MSP for the Maryhill area of Glasgow where the explosion occurred. She argued only through a full judicial inquiry would all the facts surrounding the case be uncovered. She called for the inquiry to have the scope to examine whether there is a need for new legislation, and to consider the level of fines that can be imposed for such offences. She said that the victims’ families also wanted to address the issue of why the number of accidents and injuries in workplaces in Scotland is higher than anywhere else in the UK, and why the number of prosecutions in these cases is so low.
Such an enquiry would need to be jointly initiated by the Scottish Government and Westminster, given that health and safety legislation and the laws on the the conveyance of gas through pipes, rests with the UK Government. The Lord Advocate has already met with the victims’ families and their supporters, and she said the decision on the nature and scope of the inquiry will be made by the end of the September.
There was support for a full public inquiry from across the Chamber in the debate that followed. Karen Gillon, who has long campaigned for tougher corporate manslaughter legislation in Scotland, argued that the recently passed UK Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act, which covers Scotland, is not sufficiently robust to deter companies who take risks with their workforce’s safety. The debate concluded with the Minister for Community Safety, Fergus Ewing, saying that the First Minister and the Scottish Government were committed to the idea of a full inquiry, however the decision on which sort of inquiry to hold rested with the Lord Advocate.
You can read this debate in the Official Report, watch it on Holyrood.TV, and read the press coverage in the Newsblog.
Questions
During general questions this week, the Cabinet Secretary was asked about plans to centralise the court system in the Grampians and Highlands. He said that these reforms were initiated by the previous Administration and that he was unable to make further comment until the consultation which is taking place on this issue is complete. You can read this question in the Official Report.
Written questions this week included a question to the Justice Secretary about the Government’s plans to implement the Custodial Sentences and Weapons Act. There was also a question about the number of drug-related deaths per year in Scotland, about the number of charges for driving without insurance, and about the evaluation of non-bench serving Justices of the Peace. There was a question about the number of murders committed with knives and blades, and a question about the cost of legal aid, and the Government’s plans for 1000 extra police officers. There was a question about the number of prisoner escapes while under escort, and a question in which the Chief Executive of the SPS said a direct cost comparison between a privately and publicly run new prison at Low Moss is not possible. There was a question which revealed that there were 623 people in prison for defaulting on fine repayment, and finally a question about the timetable for the tendering process at the New Low Moss prison.
Posted by KM
on Tue 25th Sep 2007
at 8:01 am
Legislation Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Act 2005
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