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01: FOREWORD BY THE CABINET SECRETARY FOR JUSTICE
It is critical our justice system is able to cope with the demands placed upon on it by life in modern Scotland. Since I became Cabinet Secretary for Justice in May 2007, I have implemented a range of reforms that have already helped make Scotland a safer and stronger place to live and work in. These reforms have included:
- Investing additional resources to enhance operational policing by building police capacity through increased recruitment of new police officers and improved opportunities for retention and redeployment of existing police officers to help make Scotland's communities safer;
- Committing funding in our ageing prison estate to provide facilities that are "fit for purpose" and capable of holding those serious offenders the public deserve protection from;
- Taking forward a National Drugs strategy designed to promote recovery from drug problems as the focus of efforts to tackle drug use;
- Taking forward the work of the National Violence Reduction Unit in tackling the scourge of violence within Scotland's communities; and
- Using funds confiscated from criminals to fund a host of initiatives that help expand young people's horizons and steer them away from a life of crime.
We also need modern, effective laws that work in tackling criminals and their criminal behaviour. I want to ensure that the dedicated people working in our criminal justice system are equipped to deal with the impact of offending from the moment a crime is committed, through the police investigation and court process and then when the sentence is handed out to the offender.
Further to the First Minister's legislative statement in the Scottish Parliament on 3 September 2008, I am pleased to confirm it is the intention of the Scottish Government to introduce a Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill into the Scottish Parliament in early 2009. It will be a wide ranging piece of legislation that will include measures to:
- Assist in the detection of crime through improvements to the law as regards when DNA and fingerprint data is able to be retained for use in detecting and prosecuting crime;
- Provide a statutory framework for the disclosure of evidence to the defence in criminal cases - confirming the integrity as to how our courts deal with cases;
- Help the courts and prosecutors through a number of sensible reforms to the criminal law and court procedures - ensuring the interests of justice are served;
- Put in place a flexible and coherent penal policy where prison remains the right disposal for serious and violent offenders;
- Crack down on prisoners who make use of advances in mobile phone technology to run their criminal empires from prison;
- Take the fight to those involved in organised crime through the creation of new organised crime offences;
- Make sentences served in the community more robust, immediate and visible; and
- Ensure our alcohol licensing laws are robust and address the problems of criminality created by our drinking culture.
Many of these changes are currently being consulted upon separately and where that is the case, brief details are given in this document with links to the separate consultations. If you have views to offer, I urge you to please do get involved and respond to these consultation exercises.
I look forward to taking the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill through the Scottish Parliament and introducing the changes to the law so that our criminal justice agencies - the police, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, the Scottish Court Service, the Scottish Prison Service and other vital partners - can take the fight to criminals and ensure Scotland truly is a safer and stronger place for hard working families to live and work in.
KENNY MACASKILL
25 SEPTEMBER 2008
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