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Plans for more effective community penalties
27/11/2007
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill today vowed to force offenders to face up to their actions through the introduction of more effective community penalties.
Announcing the outcome of the Scottish Government's review of community penalties, Mr MacAskill said that punishment should include reparation whenever possible, providing some form of positive payback to the community they have damaged.
He also unveiled the Scottish Government's action plan, a programme of change to ensure that community penalties are used to their full potential in future. It will:
- develop a single reparative community penalty under the Community Service brand, combining the best aspects of community service, supervised attendance orders and community reparation orders
- place a statutory duty on service providers to consult with local areas on the type of reparative work that should be carried out
- make Community Service orders available in all levels of criminal court in Scotland - ensuring that payback can be imposed in every case where it would be appropriate
- propose legal changes for payback to be carried out more quickly - within 6 months of their imposition rather than the current 12
- allow, for the first time, community service to include an element of activity other than unpaid work such as debt awareness training and support to help move an offender into employment
- pilot an extension of the Drug Treatment and Testing Order approach to a wider range of offenders, and assess whether that extension should be rolled-out more widely
Mr MacAskill said:
"I am convinced that greater use should be made of community penalties. This review provides strong evidence that they can be more effective than short prison sentences. We want to build on the strong platform that already exists but concentrate on what works and what is understood.
"At present community service makes up around three-quarters of the 16,500 community penalties imposed by our courts each year. Revitalising these penalties will mean courts have the confidence to use them in all suitable cases.
"Wherever possible I believe the public want to see offenders engage in worthwhile activities and give something meaningful back to the community for the misery and disruption they have caused. Where someone can be made to pay back for the wrong they have done that should be the norm.
"The recommendations in this report will ensure that our courts have a range of appropriate penalties to deal effectively with all offenders. Penalties that punish but offer the chance for offenders to turn their lives around. Penalties which are high quality, effective, immediate, visible, flexible and relevant.
"We want to focus our efforts on making the core penalty of Community Service more effective. This is what the courts impose on a regular basis and where change will have the most impact.
"We are proposing a radical restructuring of reparative sentences with Community Service at its heart, a more effective approach to the delivery of probation and a major revision of the delivery standards for all community penalties.
"A crucial aspect of changing criminal behaviour is demonstrating that there is a more rewarding alternative to a life of crime. Short prison sentences often fail to deliver on that goal. As well as benefiting the local community, effective community penalties can help an offender address underlying problems, improve employment prospects and build a sense of routine and self-esteem. This can lead to a future which is free from offending - and that is what we all want.
"A coherent penal policy must encompass a range of appropriate punishments, including prison for serious and dangerous criminals as well as tough community penalties for less serious offenders. It's therefore vital that we make the range of community penalties available to the courts as robust as possible to ensure they can be used with confidence in all appropriate cases.
"The independent Prisons Commission I set up is currently looking more widely at the purpose of prison in a modern Scotland and is due to report back in June.
"The final sentencing decision in individual cases will continue to rest with the judge - so the full impact of this package on the relative use of custodial and community penalties will only become clear over a longer timespan
"My hope is that the proposals outlined in this report will send out a strong signal that community penalties can and should be used in a greater proportion of cases in future."
Bernadette Docherty, president of the Association of Directors of Social Work in Scotland, said:
"ADSW welcomes the Scottish Government's commitment to promote the use of community penalties for less serious offenders and use prison for serious and dangerous offenders. This review helps strike a better balance between meaningful reparation and the need to address the factors that contribute to an individual's offending whilst maintaining links with families accommodation and other support systems in the community."
Community penalties are sentencing options open to the court following a finding of guilt in a criminal case. When a community penalty is imposed the punishment may be to carry out unpaid work, undertake activity to address the causes of offending or take part in a treatment and testing regime to resolve an addiction problem. Sometimes a combination of these options may be imposed - to provide, for example, a clear punishment for the crime committed alongside an activity aimed at tackling the causes of offending.
The main community penalties in Scotland are community service and probation. Other options include restriction of liberty orders (electronic tagging) and drug treatment and testing. Community penalties are already used widely by Scotland's courts and their use has increased in recent years (in 2005/06 they were the main penalty imposed in 16,500 cases - by comparison prison was used in 16,000 cases).
The Scottish Government's vision is based on six principles of effective practice and in future all community penalties should be based on the principles of:
- Quality - penalties which have a reputation for consistent delivery standards
- Effectiveness - in reducing reoffending and delivering visible payback to communities
- Immediacy - penalties which involve quick action after sentencing to counter any impression that offenders "walk free"
- Visibility - penalties which show the community how it benefits from work carried out and give victims and the wider community a say in what that work should be
- Flexibility - penalties which are responsive to the needs of communities, victims, courts and offenders rather than designed around the needs of the service
- Relevancy - penalties which take opportunities to rehabilitate offenders by addressing underlying issues and helping them to move towards a crime free lifestyle
Recent data on incidences of reoffending following the imposition of different court penalties shows that 64 per cent of individuals sentenced to prison will reoffend within two years. That figure rises to 75 per cent in the case of short prison sentences (under 6 months) Only 39 per cent of those given community service reoffend within a two year period. Whilst some caution must be exercised with this data (as it cannot take into account the detailed circumstances of each case) it suggests that the imposition of an effective community penalty may be more likely to reduce reoffending than a short prison sentence.