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re:duce • re:habilitate • re:form
IN-STREET INTERVIEWS AND PUBLIC DISCUSSION EVENTS

Annex 3 – The Topic Guide

Reducing Reoffending in Scotland
Final Topic Guide

The following question areas have been developed to provide a framework for discussion. All topic areas of relevance should be covered at some point in the discussion and should be addressed in an order that facilitates easy and relaxed conversation. Be sure to allow opportunities for respondents to raise new or different issues that they consider significant to the core subjects.

Background

• Recap on respondent details
• What contact, if any, has been had with the criminal justice system (juror, victim, witness, offender etc) and what were the reasons for this contact

Spontaneous Views on Reoffending

Reducing Re-offending as a Priority within the Criminal Justice Service

• What should be the highest priority for our justice system? – probing on reducing reoffending; tackling anti-social behaviour; tackling youth crime; reducing the prison population; making our court system work more efficiently.

Views on Re-offending, Preventing and Reducing Re-offending

• What are respondents’ views on reoffending – who commits it, what, what can be done to prevent reoffending
• How important is it that we reduce reoffending?

Roles and responsibilities for Reducing Re-offending

Lead Responsibility

• There are a number of agencies and services working within the criminal justice service – police, procurator fiscal, courts, prison service, parole board, social work, voluntary organizations, victim support and health services. In your view, which of these services has greatest responsibility for reducing re-offending? And why?

The Importance of Reducing Re-offending for Each Service

• How important do you think reducing re-offending should be to the work of each service within the criminal justice system? [probe each]

The Effectiveness of Each Service in Reducing Re-offending

• How effective are each of these services in managing offenders and reducing re-offending?

The Strengths and Weakness of How We Currently Try to Reduce Re-Offending

• What do you think are the strong points, if any, in the way services try to reduce re-offending just now? What’s good about the way we work just now?
• What do you think are the weak points, if any, if any, in the way services try to reduce re-offending just now? What’s bad about the way we work just now? What do you think needs to be done better?

A Role for the Community in Reducing Re-offending?

• Should the community have a role in reducing reoffending? If so, what should that be?

The Purpose of Prison and Reducing Re-offending

Broadly speaking, offenders are either sentenced to prison or to serve their sentence in the community. I’d like to talk first about who you think ought to go to prison or to community sentence, whether we send too many or too few to prison and why that might be, whether you think prison and community sentences are effective in reducing re-offending and what you think should be done in prison and in community sentencing to reduce re-offending.

• Who do you think ought to be sentenced to prison or to serve their sentence in the community? What kinds of offenders should be sentenced to prison and what kind should be sentenced to serve their sentence in the community?
• Do you think we send too many offenders or too few offenders to prison?
• How useful or effective do you think short-term prison sentences are in reducing re-offending?

What Should Be Done in Prison and on Community Sentences to Reduce Re-offending?

• What should be done with people in prison to reduce their reoffending in future? How effective do you think prison is in doing this at the moment? What should we do to improve the effectiveness of prison in reducing reoffending?
• What can be done to improve the rehabilitation of short term prisoners when they are released?
• What can be done to improve the rehabilitation of long term prisoners when they are released?
• What should be done with people on community sentences to reduce their reoffending in future? How effective do you think community sentences are in doing this at the moment? What should we do to improve the effectiveness of community sentences in reducing reoffending?

Addressing Reoffending and Integrating Sentence Management

Range of Services Involved in Reducing Re-offending

A wide range of service and agencies are involved in the criminal justice service and in one way or another with reducing re-offending.

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of having this range of different organisations involved in managing offenders and reducing their reoffending?

Improving How We Reduce Re-offending

• What do you think we should do to improve the way we manage offenders and try to reduce re-offending?
• How can we make sure there is clear responsibility and accountability for reducing reoffending?
• How can we make sure that information about offenders is shared between all the different people working in the criminal justice system?
• How can we ensure that offenders’ risk and needs are assessed in the same way by the different people working in the criminal justice system?
• How can we ensure that interventions and programmes are available consistently across Scotland – even in locations where they will not need to be used very often?
• How can we ensure that interventions and programmes begun in prison are available to offenders in the community on their release?
• What can we do to make sure that resources are used in the most efficient way possible to provide the most effective service?
• What can we do to ensure we do not duplicate work across the services?

Different Ways of Organizing How We Manage Offenders and Reduce Re-Offending

There are a number of different ways Scotland could organize how it manages offenders and improve how it reduces re-offending. I would like to talk through some of these ways with you and see which you think might be better for reducing re-offending.

[Short Explanation of Each Model]

• Scottish Criminal Justice Service (current system)
• Commissioner for offender services
• Offender Services Advisory Group
• National Purchasing Authority for Offender Services
• Single Agency for Specific Offender Groups
• Single Agency to manage all types of reoffending
• Which of these, if any, would be the best way to manage sentenced offenders and reduce re-offending?

Conclusion

If you had one action you could take to reduce re-offending – what would you do?

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