Criminal Justice Plan
Good morning. The first item of business is a debate on the first anniversary of the criminal justice plan.
Some people say that a week is a long time in politics—I see Conservative members nodding, so perhaps they know something that I do not—but a year in Parliament can seem to pass really quickly. However, a year seems much longer for people who live with antisocial behaviour or in fear of violence, or for somebody who becomes the latest victim of a young person who has offended again and again. Too many among us have had to suffer such a time. Let me be clear: a justice system that does not meet the needs of Scotland's people must be reformed, which is why we are engaged in the widest-ranging reform of our criminal justice service in more than 50 years. Our measures are not quick fixes or administrative dodges; they are about end-to-end reform and improvement to build the criminal justice service that we have long sought and that Scotland's people demand and deserve.
A year ago this week, I launched Scotland's criminal justice plan, which is our ambitious and far-reaching programme for a safer, stronger Scotland. We had to reform and the plan set out what we had to do, although it was clear that it would not be done in 12 months. However, we have made a strong start. I give this commitment to our hard-hit communities: the Executive is on their side and we will not stop until we deliver the criminal justice system that we all want. I ask people to judge us on our actions, on the reforms that are taking shape in local communities and on the fact that we stand side by side with people in local communities in dealing with antisocial behaviour, the so-called booze and blade culture, sex offenders, drugs and in reducing reoffending, making our daily lives safer and, importantly, rebuilding respect and confidence. We should also be judged on the improvements that we are making to our courts and to how we manage sentenced offenders.
Of course, it is not only our justice reforms that are relevant. We have invested in early years education, to provide a free nursery place for every three and four-year-old; in our young people, with the aim of creating excellence in our schools; and in our communities—we have provided record investment to help those who are socially and economically disadvantaged back into work. Those are just a few of the other steps that the Executive is taking, all of which will contribute to the stronger, safer Scotland that I talked about. However, as we said when we launched the plan, the initiative is a long-term one and we have much more to do.
Actions continue to speak louder than words, so we are acting to make our daily lives safer. We have more police officers than ever before; crime clear-up rates are at historic highs; and we have strengthened the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency by increasing the number of officers, which has helped to smash more criminal networks—84 were dealt with in the past year alone. Safer, stronger communities are built on those who respect themselves and the wider community. By fostering and rebuilding respect, we will turn the tide on antisocial behaviour and halt offending behaviour in its tracks. We have acted to provide powers and funding for local authorities, the police and their partners. Those powers are being put into practice and we are beginning to see the results of that: we now have 550 community wardens on the streets; the fixed-penalty notice pilots are interesting, with around 1,500 being issued in Tayside alone; and at least 688 warning notices and 33 penalty notices have been issued for noise nuisance.
We are using the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to repair the harm that serious and drug crime causes to our hardest-hit communities. The drug dealers don't care campaign resulted in 175 arrests, more than four times the normal number of actionable calls and more than £1.5 million-worth of seized drugs and cash. We are acting on sex offenders, who are relatively few in number but, rightly, a matter of high public concern. We will end unconditional release for sex offenders who are on short-term sentences and strengthen how we manage and supervise all sex offenders in the community.
We are acting on violence, to end the nightmare of knives that grips Scotland and that holds us all back. We aim to legislate on knives, swords and air-guns and we are dealing with the stain of alcohol-fuelled disorder and sectarianism. We have already banned stealth knives and batons and have made it an offence for any person to manufacture, sell, hire or own a listed banned weapon. We have consulted on a licensing scheme for the sale of non-domestic knives and restrictions on the general sale of swords. In a debate in the Parliament yesterday, we set out the steps that we are taking to end all forms of violence against women. Those are steps in the right direction, but they are not yet enough.
During the past year, we have worked closely with Strathclyde's violence reduction unit. The violent crime figures for Glasgow for April to September of this year show what can be done when we tackle problems together. The number of murders was down by almost a quarter, the number of attempted murders was down by almost a third and the number of serious assaults was down by 12 per cent. We have long said that we will learn the lessons of what works, by starting where violence hits hardest and then rolling out the measures throughout Scotland. That is why we will, I am pleased to say, support the roll-out of the Strathclyde violence reduction unit to become a national centre of expertise to share best operational practice and to give advice to police and partners throughout Scotland. We will work with the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland and the VRU on a series of targeted national campaigns. That work is about action, not words.
Will the minister give more detail on exactly how the violence reduction unit will operate in parts of the country outwith Strathclyde? How many individuals is the unit likely to deal with?
That is a timely intervention, as I was about to say a bit more about the work that the violence reduction unit will do. It is important to point out that we need the unit to support work that is done locally. I know that Mr Swinney has concerns about antisocial behaviour in more rural communities, which we accept is a problem. The violence reduction unit will share best practice and expertise and support people throughout Scotland. However, we must build violence reduction into everything that we do—we cannot say simply that the unit must solve all the problems. That is why we intend to establish a national working group that will bring together senior decision makers from the key services, supported by a range of anti-violence experts, to identify and drive forward best practice throughout Scotland. We will support that work with a website that will provide information and advice and which will be part of the process of supporting people in local communities. I want practical and commonsense steps that achieve results. That has happened in Glasgow and Strathclyde, so I believe that we can roll out the work throughout Scotland.
That work is only part of the process. We must ensure that we have joined-up services that try to bring law and order into chaotic lives and lifestyles. Four weeks ago, the Parliament approved the Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill, which contains far-reaching reforms to allow us to reduce reoffending and bring law and order to chaotic lives. The potential benefits that the legislation will bring include better risk assessment, better case management, better information sharing, better-quality approved and accredited interventions and better joint working. Alongside that, we have acted to provide a full range of appropriate community sentences. Drug treatment and testing orders are now available to almost every court in Scotland. We know from the evidence so far that half of the offenders who receive a DTTO will not reoffend within two years. The orders have been used to deal with about 1,000 of the most persistent and chaotic offenders since 1999.
To clarify, DTTOs are not available in district courts, are they?
No, they are not. The member and I have had an exchange on the matter before and discussed whether it would be appropriate to roll out DTTOs to the district courts. It is important that we focus on those who are likely to cause the most problems and we have tried to ensure that the full range of services is available throughout Scotland. The likelihood, however, is that the most serious and persistent offenders will be dealt with in the sheriff courts, so it is appropriate that we focus on those courts at present.
We must reform how our courts work, so that we have efficient courts, delivering effective sentences. Our High Court reform is already delivering impressive results. Initial estimates tell us that around one in four listed witnesses no longer needs to attend. In about 55 per cent of cases with a preliminary hearing, the accused is tendering an acceptable guilty plea. Around 50,000 witness appearances are estimated to have been saved. We are now acting on our summary courts, which deal with 96 per cent of all criminal cases—those are often the cases that are most visible to people locally. A quick, effective response at this stage is a real opportunity to stop a first-time offender becoming a persistent offender.
As we introduce legislation, we want to increase the availability of alternatives to prosecution. It is our intention to increase the maximum level of fiscal fine from £100 to £500 and to introduce fiscal compensation orders, in which the accused is offered a chance to pay compensation directly to their victim to put right their wrong. It is also our intention to introduce a new option for prosecutors: the community fiscal fine. The fine has been described as a fine on time, in which offenders are offered the opportunity to put something back into the communities against which they have offended. Those reforms will give prosecutors a greater range of options to deal with many of the volume offences—the so-called minor offences that have to be dealt with outside the court system—and to speed up how we deal with low-level offending, to free up time so that the more serious offences can be heard in court more quickly.
Will the minister turn her mind to the £10 million-plus of outstanding fines and say whether she has plans to improve the effectiveness of the recovery of fines from offenders? Last year, we took the ineffective approach of sending 6,000 fine defaulters to prison.
Mr Stevenson will recall that we have introduced some of the McInnes report's proposals, which makes it clear that we want to improve the position. On a cautionary note, however, the sum that is given for outstanding fines will always include a number of fines that people are paying by regular instalment. We want to speed up the process, and measures such as supervised attendance orders are being introduced as an alternative to putting people in prison for relatively short periods, to no good effect. We will continue to pursue such measures.
On summary justice, the Executive believes that lay justice has an important part to play in our justice system. However, we should open up the selection process and improve training and support to ensure that people are not only aware of the system of lay justice but are able to serve their communities within the justice system. More people should have the opportunity to do that.
We believe in further improving our courts. In March this year, I announced the phased unification of the summary criminal courts. I am pleased to announce today that, subject to Parliament approving the legislation, the first sheriffdom to unify will be Lothian and Borders, followed by Grampian, and Highlands and Islands. That will give us a modernised service, which will deliver sharper, smarter justice and reflect the needs of local communities. It is not only local communities that want that unification; the professionals who work in the system have long asked for it. Phasing will allow the right local solutions to be put into place. Court business must continue to be carried out in locations throughout Scotland, taking account of the needs of victims, witnesses and communities.
Our reforms are taking root and are setting criminal justice in Scotland on a different path. A considerable amount of work has been done in the past year. We recognise that much more has to be done, but we are on the right path—a path that offers us hope for a better future for everyone. The path of reform is rarely easy; if it were it would perhaps be more often travelled. However, the Parliament must take the right approach to reform. We must constantly strive to improve services and we must remember that we are doing that because we want to make the daily lives of our citizens much better and our communities much safer places to be.
During the past year, I have been heartened by the skill and commitment of staff who work every day to make the lives of their fellow citizens just that bit safer and easier. It has been a difficult time for some staff within the criminal justice system, as the pace of change has speeded up. However, I put on record my thanks to everyone who has been involved in that process so far. I am particularly proud of those throughout our communities who show day-in, day-out that people gain respect by how they live their lives, by being decent citizens within their communities and by how they behave towards others, not by the weapons that they carry in their pockets, by how hard they appear to others on the street or by achieving what they want through threat or fear.
I hope that the debate will give us an opportunity to confirm that the Executive, the Government and the Parliament are on the side of the decent, ordinary citizen in communities throughout Scotland. I believe that the Parliament will continue to support our work in reforming the system to deliver the safer, stronger Scotland that we need and that the people we represent deserve.
I thank the minister for her speech. The Scottish National Party concurs fully with much of what she said. No one who enters politics or who is given the privilege of appearing in the chamber seeks to make Scotland a more lawless place; we all seek to make Scotland a better place. A debate such as this gives us a better opportunity to review matters than does an adversarial debate that is focused on one aspect. The debate will be wide ranging—the minister's speech has been wide ranging.
The SNP accepts that progress has been made—I am on record as saying that. I see the glass as half full, not half empty. It is a Scottish trait to consider the worst aspects. The SNP has welcomed the many legislative changes that have been made. We also appreciate the many procedural changes.
There are difficulties on the way, and we have recently heard of miscarriages of justice. The system must be big enough to admit when it gets something wrong. I do not want to go into individual cases, but recently someone was released after a considerable period in prison. Is he due an apology? Is the family of the victim due an apology? What are the circumstances? I am not seeking a comment from the minister, but that is a test not only of whether the system has got it right, but of whether it is big enough to admit that it has got it wrong.
It would be completely inappropriate for me to comment on individual cases, but I hope that Parliament recognises the work of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the fact that the Executive has given funding to MOJO—the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation Scotland—which is one of the voluntary organisations that supports people who have found themselves in that position. We recognise that there are situations in which people require support.
Absolutely. I was not criticising the Executive, but pointing out how we should shape the justice system. The system must be prepared to admit its errors as well as to seek praise. Significant progress is being made on witnesses—the Solicitor General for Scotland is here to receive that accolade.
Matters are still being raised; I am particularly thinking of one that was presented to the Public Petitions Committee yesterday, although it is not appropriate now to go into the tragedy that befell Mrs Reid. Ultimately, we will have to balance the operation of the system with the needs and wants of the victim. Until now we have ignored the rights of the victim, and it is to the credit of the Executive, and the Solicitor General in particular, that that has been dealt with. There is an opportunity to go further—just how far remains to be seen.
There are areas in which the SNP considers that the Executive has not gone far enough, such as the changes on air weapons, although they are welcome. We need an all-encompassing system that must be dealt with by the Parliament, with the Executive taking responsibility for driving it forward. Progress has been made on knives, and the SNP recognises that the Executive has, quite correctly, been willing to drive further and faster to create a significantly different system in Scotland than has been the case south of the border. It would be logical to do likewise with air weapons, on which there is a significant and distinctive Scottish problem.
Does the SNP propose an all-out ban on air-guns, or a registration system?
Our position is clear. New weapons should be licensed when they are first sold, and unless someone has them for the specific purpose of pest and vermin control, or because they are a member of a registered gun club, there is no legally justifiable or ordinary commonsense reason for possessing them. Air-guns are not things of fun that people should get in their Christmas stockings to enable them to go out shooting. The situation is unacceptable: we have said that before and we say it again.
It is important that the minister mentioned respect and responsibility. Those words have been bandied around, but they are fundamental to individuals accepting responsibility for their actions. Individuals have rights, but they must also recognise the rights of their neighbours. That is why we are happy for antisocial behaviour orders to be used in Mid Calder. We recognise that that cannot be the ultimate solution, as it might lead the offenders simply to congregate in East Calder, Pumpherston or West Calder. However, the residents of Mid Calder are entitled to have immediate action taken to protect them on a Friday or Saturday night or at any other time of the week.
We must look for a solution that is based on acceptance of responsibility and respect. Some of the problems are cultural matters in which legislation has a role but cannot, ultimately, be the enforcer. It is important to recognise that the criminal justice system alone cannot solve all the problems that manifest themselves as criminal justice matters. It is impossible for the police to do anything other than firefight unless we drill down to the question of why kids are hanging around in Mid Calder. Some of the offences are committed out of badness and the offenders need to be dealt with through punishment; however, we must work out and address why certain areas are affected and why certain individuals are involved. I received a written answer from the minister on 1 December that makes it clear that there are social and economic issues involved and that drink, drugs and deprivation underpin much offending. The answer states that 77 per cent of people who are sent to prison have a drink or drug dependency problem. We have a problem that cannot be addressed simply by the criminal justice system; however, that does not mean that it should abdicate responsibility. The house owners and shop owners in Mid Calder want a solution, not an excuse. They want immediate action.
We must remember that neither the police nor prisons alone can address these matters; they have to be addressed in different ways. If we are to get the society that we want, we must address the underlying problems of drink, drugs and deprivation. The percentage of people who are admitted to prison with a drink or drug dependency problem is shameful and reflects badly not so much on the Executive as on Scottish society. We have a problem in our midst and, if we are to address its manifestations in crime and antisocial behaviour, we must tackle it. We cannot simply expect our police officers to rush from area to area, dishing out ASBOs, firefighting on a wet Friday night, or whatever. We need to drill down below that.
Finally, I will address rendition flights. Professor Christopher Gain today seems to be suggesting—as an academic lawyer would—that those who fuel such planes are guilty of participation. However, it would be a brave chief constable who sought to access a plane that was operated by the Central Intelligence Agency or some other United States agency. It is a political matter that must be dealt with by the Executive and by number 10. We have values, which we have talked about before, and the system must be big enough to admit it when it gets things wrong. If we get something right, we should congratulate ourselves; if we get something wrong, we should recompense those whom we have mistreated.
Kenny MacAskill has suggested that the Executive needs to take action. Will he spell out what action it should take?
The Executive should make it clear that we have laws and values in Scotland, which we have upheld through the centuries and which we adhere to. It should make it clear that we object to torture and do not wish to participate in flights that are linked to that. At a minimum, the Executive should state publicly that it is telling the Prime Minister that we do not want those flights here. The Executive may not have the power to redirect the planes, as airspace is a reserved matter, but it should state whether it is for or against such flights.
Is the Executive prepared to tell Tony Blair that it does not want Scotland's hands to be sullied with the carting of those people from the middle east to eastern Europe, whether they are in nappies, whether they are drugged and wherever they are from? That is the least that the Executive should do, because it is fundamentally accountable for Scots law. We do not wish to participate. If Scots law is being flouted by anyone—by a ned in Mid Calder or by the largest superpower the world has ever known—and what is happening is contrary to the values of our society, we should make it clear that that is unacceptable.
There is a historical precedent for that. Some 20-odd years ago, New Zealand amended its constitution to state that the country would be nuclear free. That was proposed by a Labour Government, to its credit. New Zealand then faced the problem of United States ships seeking to enter its ports to refuel. The Government of New Zealand said that, unless the US denied that the ships had nuclear weapons on board, the ships could not enter its ports; however, US policy on its ships is the same as that on its aeroplanes.
Will the member give way?
No.
The US neither confirms nor denies that nuclear weapons are on board its ships, just as it neither confirms nor denies whether its planes are carrying prisoners from A to B. To its credit, the New Zealand Government said that unless the US denied that nuclear weapons were on board the ships—or if it confirmed that they were—the ships could not dock there. The New Zealand Government acted like a Labour Government. It acted to uphold the values and the constitution of New Zealand.
It is not for Governments to—
Ms McNeill, sit down. Mr MacAskill, you should finish now.
New Zealand's constitution has remained unchanged, although Conservative Governments have since taken over. The New Zealand Government recognised the law, the constitution and the values of the people. The Scottish Executive has failed to stand up for the laws and values of the people. It is the Executive's duty to make it clear that rendition flights are unacceptable and to tell Tony Blair that we do not want those flights in our airspace.
I was lulled into leisurely retrospection this morning and almost convinced myself that I was in a time machine and had found myself back in 2000. That was until I listened to Mr MacAskill and wondered where on earth a debate on the criminal justice plan of this devolved Parliament was straying. It turned out that I was not in a time machine; the Executive was simply spinning things in that way. The minister wants to talk about what has happened in criminal justice in Scotland over the past year, but Labour and the Liberal Democrats have been in charge of the Scottish justice system for the past six years, not just one year. No matter how much they might like to obscure their abysmal record over those six years, I am not going to let them.
The minister has talked about the progress that has been made on the criminal justice plan, but I wish to remind her of the real consequences of the Executive's policies on law and order over the past six years. Since 1999, crime and offences are up 15 per cent to an all-time high. Serious assault is up by 6 per cent; rape and attempted rape are up by 47 per cent; fire-raising and vandalism are up by 58 per cent; and drug crime is up by 38 per cent. A chilling statistic from the Scottish crime survey is that three out of four crimes are never reported to the police. If anything is indicative of a significant dent in public confidence in our criminal justice system, it is surely that statistic. I could continue to cite statistics, but I have limited time.
With all those problems and so many challenges, what has the Executive done? The minister said—I support her in this and hope that I quote her correctly—that a justice system that does not meet the needs of the public must be reformed. I pose the question: how has the Executive reflected that? It has voted four times against ending the automatic early release of prisoners and has passed legislation to make it easier for prisoners to get out of jail even earlier.
Does Miss Goldie accept that, as we have made clear, we intend to end the current automatic early-release system and that the correct way in which to do that is by properly considering the views of the Sentencing Commission for Scotland, which has been asked to do that job, and by putting in place a system that will ensure better management of offenders between prisons and the community?
Intentions, intentions, intentions. The minister does not need me or the Scottish public to tell her that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The public look for political leadership, not intentions.
How has the Executive reflected its admittedly laudable approach? It abandoned the just say no drugs campaign, which was replaced with one that gives mixed messages. It has no idea how many drug rehabilitation places are available in Scotland for dealing with the growing number of addicts. It has presided over a burgeoning growth industry in methadone scripts and it abolished Scotland Against Drugs without any debate or explanation and without giving any notice to the Parliament. In the meantime, drugs-related crime has soared and our prisons are awash with drugs. Our overstretched police officers have been given so many new responsibilities that, according to the Executive's research, only about 145 of them are on our streets at any one time. If I were Minister for Justice, I too would want to hide from such a record.
By contrast, my party believes that crime can be cut and we have policies that will achieve that. Due to time constraints, I cannot mention all the issues on which I would like to offer the minister some advice—although I will keep her in mind in future debates—so let me focus on three simple steps that would dramatically improve the Scottish criminal justice system. First, we must end the automatic release of prisoners now. The minister disputes that such a move is possible or practical, but sometimes in public life Governments need to show political leadership by responding to public dismay at a system that is discredited. If the minister is as committed to such a policy as she suggested this morning, she ought to introduce legislative proposals to address the issue.
Will the member take an intervention?
I have been generous in accepting one intervention from the minister already.
Each week, our newspapers contain further sad stories of people who have been attacked and killed by individuals who, but for the practice of automatic early release, would still have been in prison. Surely the minister accepts that there is a public appetite for a change in that practice. Such a change must apply to all offenders, not just sex offenders as the criminal justice plan hinted. Just last week, Derek Ferguson was found guilty of the tragic murder of 16-year-old Steven Pettigrew. The stabbing took place in April this year, when Ferguson should still have been in prison for his brutal attack on a father and son in 1999. Surely the practice of automatic early release cannot continue to be acceptable.
Secondly, the Executive must learn from elsewhere by accepting the merit and wisdom of a zero-tolerance policing strategy and introducing genuine local accountability. I am aware that the public throughout Scotland are frustrated by a feeling of impotence about their ability to influence how general strategic policing is conceived and provided. The members of the public who pay taxes to fund our police forces do not know where they fit in. My party believes that some level of accountability could be achieved through the direct election of police board conveners and the publication of localised crime statistics. If the minister will not listen to me, perhaps she will listen to Chief Constable John Vine, who said:
"We still run our police forces in Scotland like social clubs. About 80% of our time goes on making life comfortable and the public out there are almost a bloody nuisance who get in the way. We need to change that culture. They are paying our wages and we need to be far more responsive to what they want. I think we need a new deal with them."
Well said, John Vine.
Thirdly, as I told the First Minister last week, we need to introduce a politically led strategy to deal with the scourge of drugs abuse in Scotland. After six years of devolution, the deficiencies and omissions in information to which I have referred can no longer be acceptable. The Executive needs to find out more information about what is happening in Scotland so that it can work out a strategy for those who need to find help, which they must be able to find easily. The Executive must also rapidly deploy strategies to provide vastly improved facilities for rehabilitation of drug-addicted people.
I have been able to make only those few suggestions in the time that is available to me this morning, but I urge the minister to listen to public opinion and common sense and to reverse the tide of rising crime in Scotland. It can be done, but it needs courage, conviction and political leadership.
At the beginning of Mr MacAskill's speech, I thought that the Cameron effect had touched the SNP. However, if he started his speech as David Cameron, he most certainly ended it as Michael Howard. Annabel Goldie picked up the latter theme, so it is evident that the consensual element in Conservative politics has not reached north of the border.
We all have constituency casework involving constituents who have been victims of crime. The fact that I am a Liberal Democrat does not mean that I am softer on crime than any other member or that I do not understand how crime can affect families and communities, including my own. Being a Liberal Democrat does not mean that I am not on their side, but it means that I believe that our justice system should not be designed around the latest tragedy. Firearms and sex offending are good examples of complex and difficult criminal justice issues that should not be shaped by yesterday's newspaper headlines. Of course such issues are sensitive, but the Parliament must ensure that it strikes the right balance not by responding to headlines but by having a proper criminal justice system.
Part of the solution must be to reduce reoffending, as is emphasised in the criminal justice plan whose anniversary we mark today. Many of those who have gone through the social work system and have then been given a disposal now receive an assessment and supervision in the community. That aspect of the criminal justice plan often gets overlooked. In the Lothian and Borders criminal justice consortium area in 2003-04, almost 5,000 assessments were prepared for the courts. Of those, 61 per cent resulted in an order requiring community supervision. About 1,000 prisoners were supervised both in prison and in the community. Of course, it is hard to test the success of that supervision, because robust monitoring of recidivism is difficult. It is easier to monitor whether someone commits an offence immediately after their release from prison or on bail than, say, two years after their release. However, the Cinderella service of criminal justice social work will rightly need to have increasing visibility in the future.
The Parliament is aware of my long-standing view on the ineffectiveness of short-term prison sentences. It is inevitable that we will always need the sanction of imprisonment whereby we deprive someone of their liberty, but our continuing reliance on short-term prison sentences is ineffective in reducing reoffending. Structurally, it can undermine the work of the dedicated professionals who are committed to rehabilitating offenders, because it means that they lack the structural tools to assist them in their task.
According to the Executive's figures for 2003, 54 per cent of all custodial sentences were for less than three months and 21 per cent were for less than 60 days. The high number of very short sentences that are handed down by our courts not only contributes to our large prison population—and our unenviable record as one of the most imprisoned countries of Europe—but makes it almost impossible to provide offenders with real training and education or allow them successfully to complete drugs or alcohol programmes. Although the new centres in our prisons try to co-ordinate programmes so that they start in prison and continue in the community, we simply do not have the right levels for that to work for individuals and communities. That is a tragedy.
It is no secret that I would like the Sentencing Commission to promote a much wider acceptance of the value of real and thorough community sentences. The ability to impose community and restorative justice disposals—and, arguably, drugs programmes—should be widened so that such disposals are available to district courts.
We should end the arbitrary early release of prisoners, but, rather than adopting the Conservatives' arbitrary approach, we should replace automatic release with a more flexible system of tailored release. Such a system should include community supervision and additional requirements, such as attendance at a course or programme, that are shaped around the individual's specific requirements. For example, a condition of release might be that the individual attends a housing interview or an anger management course. We should not underestimate the benefits of such an approach for some types of offender who are released from prison, especially given the utterly chaotic lifestyles of so many of them, to which the minister referred.
In 1994, just over 10 per cent of all penalties in Scotland were custodial. In 2003, the figure was nearly 13 per cent. Today, there is a greater reliance on sending Scots to prison than there was even 10 years ago.
Most controversially, but most importantly, I want to see a phasing out of sentences of three months or less and a presumption against sentences of less than six months. A sheriff or a justice of the peace would have to give a reason for deciding that no alternative was either available or desirable. We now have considerable evidence in all the areas that we are discussing. I know that the Sentencing Commission will give serious consideration to such issues.
It would be positive for us to move in the direction that I have suggested, but inevitably that would involve placing a greater burden on the community sector and on criminal justice social work. However, if we consider the costs that are incurred in sending people to prison, we see that there is scope for spending money differently and, in my view, more effectively. Figures from 2002-03 show that the average cost of a six-month prison place is approximately £15,000. That compares with just over £1,000 for a six-month probation order and just under £1,400 for a six-month community service order. More community places mean more expense and burden on the community. However, with fewer prison places, we would arguably have a more effective and efficient system.
We are looking at the operation of the criminal justice plan over the past year. Understandably, there has been much comment on the crime figures this year, as there is in most years. Miss Goldie relayed statistics that suited her argument, but people can find statistics to suit most other arguments. I am sure that most members have read the latest annual report of Her Majesty's chief inspector of constabulary, in which he places an important health warning on any published figures. He states that the new Scottish crime recording standard, introduced in April 2004, is based on the victim-oriented approach of the national crime recording standard, which was introduced in England and Wales in 2003. In practice, it means that no corroborative evidence is required initially to record a crime-related incident as a crime. If the incident is perceived as such by the victim or another person, it is recorded.
We should all welcome the more victim-oriented approach. The introduction of the new recording standard was expected to increase the number of minor crimes recorded by the police, such as minor crimes of vandalism and petty thefts. The total number of crimes recorded in Scotland in 2004-05 was the equivalent of 86.3 crimes per 1,000 of the population. If I went outside the chamber today and asked people how many crimes they believed were committed in Scotland per 1,000 people over a year, they would give much higher figures. Regrettably, the fear of violent crime and crime involving firearms is also greater than the reality of such crime.
The inspector's report provides another good example of why we must examine the figures closely, instead of using them glibly. The number of crimes and offences involving the alleged use of firearms rose by 20 per cent, from 974 in 2003-04 to 1,165 in 2004-05—hence the shock, horror from many members. Nevertheless, the figure is 34 per cent lower than that for 1995-96 and is equivalent to about 0.1 per cent of all recorded crimes and offences.
The plan that the minister set out is ambitious and impressive as a single document that outlines the work of the Executive. By and large, it received support across the chamber. It does not start afresh, but builds on work that the Executive has done previously. However, given that this is the anniversary of the plan, there is no doubt that we must make more progress in Scotland. There is no dispute that we have record numbers of police officers and that they are being ambitious. Eighty-four criminal networks have been broken. We are putting in place new structures in community justice authorities—I hope that they will make a real difference in co-ordinating the kind of work that needs to be done in our communities, with more community disposals and reviews of sentences, which will be more effective in the future.
A year after the publication by the Executive of Scotland's criminal justice plan, it is fitting that the Parliament should take stock. The direction of travel was clearly stated by Cathy Jamieson in her foreword to the document:
"to protect communities and prevent crime, tackle drug addiction, reform our courts, deliver effective interventions and sentences which fit the crime and build integrated services to manage sentenced offenders."
That is no easy task; it is a huge challenge. As the minister indicated in her speech, there is no short cut on this journey and there are no quick fixes.
In our discussion this morning, as we engage across the chamber, we need to judge how far we have come and to map out clearly how far we still have to go to arrive at a Scotland of safer, stronger communities. I would like to concentrate on two of the plan's five areas: first, the development of integrated services for managing offenders; and, secondly, the protection of our communities and prevention of crime.
As a member of the Justice 2 Committee, I took part in the interrogation of the Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill, which was passed by the chamber four weeks ago. I believe that the legislation will help both to improve the management of offenders, through greater integration of the work of the criminal justice agencies, and to reduce the level of reoffending. In particular, the creation under section 11 of the bill of a new discretionary power for the Scottish Prison Service to release certain prisoners on home detention curfew has real merit. Most of the evidence taken by the committee supported the creation of home detention curfews for certain low-risk prisoners. I repeat that for the benefit of Miss Goldie—low-risk prisoners. The police were generally supportive of HDCs as clearly specified in the bill. HDCs are one means of assisting the process of planned integration of specific categories of prisoners. They will play a part in reducing the level of reoffending, without putting at risk the safety of communities throughout Scotland.
I repeat for the sake of the Conservatives that only certain types of low-risk prisoners will be eligible. Sex offenders who are subject to notification requirements, prisoners who are subject to extended sentences and those who have a history of domestic violence will rightly be excluded. All releases on licence will be monitored remotely and time on HDC cannot be more than 135 days. HDCs are not a panacea. The Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill is not the answer, but it is part of a solution to reoffending.
I know that the Conservatives cited HDCs as one of the "two principled grounds"—I quote from Miss Goldie's speech in the stage 3 debate on the Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill—for their inability to support enactment of the bill. Unlike Miss Goldie, who questioned the sincerity of the Executive today, I do not question the sincerity of the Conservatives' position. Sadly, I can only describe her speech today as a bout of Punch-and-Judy politics. The issue is too serious for that—Miss Goldie will have to raise her game. I hope that, if HDCs are successful, Conservative members will have the good grace to support them in due course.
Does the member accept that, with the introduction of home detention curfews, we are eliminating the possibility of continuing effective rehabilitation work in prison?
I do not. If I had more time, I would explain to the member why.
HDCs and the drive to cut levels of reoffending must never compromise public safety—that is a given. Public safety is the Parliament's prime concern, along with the economy. Our priority is to create the communities in Scotland that we want to see, in which crime is cut and a civilised society is able to grow.
One aspect of offending that causes concern among members from all parties and throughout the country is the high incidence of violent crime involving the use of knives and other offensive weapons. Statistics show that knives and other sharp instruments continue to be the most common method of killing in our country. That alarming trend is most apparent in Glasgow and the west of Scotland, but it touches every part of Scotland. I was pleased to hear the minister pledge today to roll out the work of the Strathclyde police violence reduction unit, so that it becomes a national centre of expertise. That is a good move.
The minister will be aware that at a recent meeting the Justice 2 Committee took evidence from Detective Chief Superintendent Carnochan of the unit. He spoke with the eloquence of those on the front line. When asked about the likely impact of the proposals in the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill regarding knife crime, he said:
"If we prevent one family from having to visit a grave and another family from having to go to Barlinnie or Polmont for the next 10 years to visit their teenage son, the bill will have been a success. The Parliament will not pass many pieces of legislation that will save a life, but this bill has the potential to do that."—[Official Report, Justice 2 Committee, 22 November 2005; c 1854.]
We should take real account of those words. I say to the minister that although Strathclyde police and police throughout Scotland do good work in this area, the challenge of knife crime and its attendant culture remains highly difficult.
My constituents support the police taking visible deterrent action. There is a general welcome for the proposals in the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill to strengthen the police's stop-and-search powers. There is widespread agreement that punishment must be severe. I know that ministers are not convinced about mandatory sentences because of their inflexibility and I tend to agree with that. However, although I wholly acknowledge the independence of the judiciary, I urge, as my constituents would, the fullest use of the powers available to sentencers in the appropriate circumstances.
Condign punishment is not enough; it is important, but so is education. I mention—in a cross-party rather than a Punch-and-Judy way—Tommy Sheridan's imaginative suggestion that reformed offenders could play an important role in that education, alongside the research and educational work that the Executive has already set in train.
Members of the Scottish Parliament have legitimate differences of opinion about the means of dealing with criminal justice matters. However, there is broad agreement about the end that we seek: a safer Scotland where fewer people go to prison, where reoffending is cut and where the criminal justice system is resilient enough to punish where necessary and to rehabilitate where possible. We seek to create, in the words of the Executive—they should be the words of the Parliament, too—a safer, stronger Scotland.
Mr MacAskill wondered whether, in our speeches, we would see the glass as being half full or half empty. In that spirit, I will try to make my speech about the glass being half full.
I applaud the Government for the many good criminal justice measures that it has introduced and for the practical steps that it has taken to try to ease the concerns of all our constituents, whether in urban or rural Scotland. However, the generalities of the debate that the minister initiated have to be challenged by the realities of life in our communities—I listened with care to what Mr Purvis said about that. It is important that, in this debate, we should test whether the reforms that the Government undertakes are matched by what happens in our communities. I will draw on an example from my constituency to illustrate that the Government has a lot more to do, as the minister said in her speech.
The minister said that her objective was to create stronger and safer communities. I entirely support that. She said that the Executive is on the side of people in our communities, but my example is of where the system is falling down. Earlier this year, in one of the many rural towns that I represent in Perthshire, a 16-year-old man who was behaving entirely innocently was assaulted in the street. He was forced to the ground and an attempt was made to jump on his head in a very dangerous fashion. Luckily, he was able to escape with his friends. The person who attempted to stamp on his head had received an 18-month sentence for the serious assault of a man in exactly the same location some time before. He had been let out on licence after completing six months of that sentence and, on the very day of his release from prison, he stamped on my constituent's head.
That tells us that the system does not in any way address the practical realities of people's experiences. A court date was set for the trial in the summer. Between the time of the assault on my constituent and the appearance in court, the individual who was charged with that assault assaulted a police officer into the bargain. He pleaded and was found guilty of those offences, sparing my constituent the obligation to go to court, which I welcome.
While the man was on remand waiting to be sentenced, he appealed for bail to attend his cousin's funeral. He was let out unsupervised two days before he was due in court. Members will never believe what happened—he absconded. He was let out unsupervised after pleading guilty to committing serious assaults, including an assault on a police officer.
The man was finally apprehended, returned to court, where he pleaded guilty, and given 18 months' probation with a requirement to undertake alcohol counselling, which I think was a good idea, and 120 hours' community service. I would have thought that an appropriate disposal in that case, if it had to be probation, would be that he should have had to undertake some form of counselling to challenge his aggressive violent behaviour. I am dumbfounded by the sentence that he was given by the judicial system.
The young man who perpetrated the assault on my constituent has a history of 17 convictions since the age of 16—he is now 19. The case of my constituent poses the question what damage is to be done in the communities that I represent before the system more effectively challenges the behaviour of individuals such as that young offender. I cannot believe that a sheriff who has full capacity in a court can make such a lenient decision given the conduct of that individual.
As a result, the victim of the assault is now terrified to walk the streets of the town—no wonder. I raised the issue with the minister, who, as always, dealt thoroughly with my correspondence.
I accept that the case that John Swinney describes is tragic, but is he suggesting that the Executive should lay down guidelines to sheriffs enforcing exactly what sentences they should impose, or do we still feel that sheriffs should be independent? Perhaps in the case that he described the sheriff was particularly lax, but sheriffs must have their independence.
The minister made the point in her letter to me that the judiciary is independent, that it must make its own decisions and that the Government gives sheriffs guidance on suitable penalties. However, there must be a culture change in the judicial system. Although the issue is not all to do with the Executive, it is not good enough for the Executive to say, "We're doing our bit, it's the judiciary that's letting us all down." The whole system has to deal adequately with the problems that I have highlighted.
I agree that the judiciary must be independent, but it is important that the Government gives the right signals about what it expects the judiciary to do. Into the bargain, the Government must also make it clear that wider disposals are available. That is why I welcome what the minister said about the Strathclyde police violence reduction unit and the importance of challenging more assertively the behaviour of individuals who are guilty of violent crimes.
I do not take the view, as the Conservatives do, that everybody should be locked up for ever to take account of their crimes. However, I believe that everybody who is found guilty of a crime must have their behaviour challenged. That is where my criticism of the Executive rests. I do not believe that the Executive has challenged effectively and assertively the conduct of individuals who are guilty of serious assaults. Until it does, I suspect that young individuals will continue to have to endure the same kind of pain and suffering as did the constituent whose case I brought to the Parliament today.
As one whose political style is very much Punch as opposed to Judy, I start by acknowledging certain aspects of the criminal justice reforms that have been effective.
I concede that the minister is correct in saying that there are now more police officers in post. However, where things have gone rather awry is that not many of those officers are out patrolling the streets. The minister's department and the Parliament have imposed wider responsibilities on police officers under a number of headings. Although there has been an increase in the number of officers, the volume of work that has been created diminishes the effect of any significant increase and that has to be recognised.
I wonder how much patrol time is now available to police officers. It appears that they spend their shifts going from call to call on the basis of telephone reports, which is a highly unsatisfactory situation. Officers are answering calls all the time and there is no patrol time whatsoever.
Surely Bill Aitken is not suggesting that the police should not respond to calls from the public.
Absolutely not. I am suggesting that there are not enough police officers. The officers who are on duty are answering calls all the time, with the result that they are not out patrolling the streets, deterring and preventing crime. That is a marked issue and the minister should be making inquiries into whether what I am saying is the case. She has passed a plethora of legislation, not all of which has been bad. However, a great deal of it has been unnecessary, because if she had used the existing law she could have achieved the results that she was seeking to achieve.
Some of the measures that have been introduced have greatly diminished the effectiveness of the summary courts. As the minister recognised in her speech, a first offender who is dealt with adequately might not become a repeat offender and might not carry out a much more serious crime. However, let us consider the position. The summary criminal courts impose fines, but fines are frequently not paid. They impose community service orders, but community service is frequently not done. There is still a question mark over the enforceability of fiscal fines, and there are discounted sentences and early-release schemes.
The maximum sentence on a summary complaint when there has been no analogous offence is three months' imprisonment. If we discount a third for a plea, that brings it down to 60 days, and with automatic early release it comes down to 30 days. Will that deter anyone? The short, simple answer is no. What is the solution to the problem? I always believe in being constructive in parliamentary debates, and surely the answer must be to deduct fines from wages and benefits in order to ensure that they are paid, that there is a deterrent and that we do not have the ludicrous situation, which Stewart Stevenson quite correctly highlighted, of people going to jail in lieu of payment of fines.
We must have a much more robust approach to community service, which is often not used by sentencers because they have no confidence in the system. Community service is often not done. Community service orders are frequently breached, but the breaches are never reported. That is the reality of the situation.
With regard to the early-release scheme, one of the issues is that many of the courts do not use the powers to order an accused person to serve the unexpired portion of a sentence when early release has been granted. I detect some straws in the wind and I hope that the minister is finally realising that the early-release farce must be examined. We shall see what emerges from the Sentencing Commission for Scotland, and if early release is to end we shall most certainly support that.
Are the Conservatives saying that they are against conditional early release?
I think that our views on the matter are well known. In fact, Mr Butler will recall that he voted against us twice, quite enthusiastically, when we tried to amend legislation in order to deal with that.
There is a case for early release in certain instances, but it should certainly not be 50 per cent of a sentence of four years or less. We have made that clear in the past. I felt some fear when I saw a report in today's paper headed, "Jamieson backs plans for offenders to serve split sentence: prison term and work in community". There is a clear case for community service, which we have always supported, but there is also a clear case for deterrence, and split sentences are not likely to bring about deterrence. That is our concern.
John Swinney mentioned a constituency case in which the sentence appears, on the face of it, not to have been appropriate. I am surprised that the Crown did not utilise the powers that were granted by the Conservative Government to appeal an unduly lenient sentence. That, surely, would have been the way round the problem, but I do not think that we should comment further on individual cases in Parliament today.
Until there is a real deterrent, we will not get a fall in criminality.
With regard to community sentencing and the proper co-ordination of sentences and community disposals at local level, so that the judiciary has more faith in them, why did not the Conservative party support the establishment of the community justice authorities, which will place a duty on local authorities to co-operate and to work together? In fact, I recall Mrs Mitchell saying that the community justice authorities were too tough.
The practicalities of that scheme were questionable. However, Mr Purvis himself states that he does not want sentences of less than three months. In preparation for a recent debate, I looked at sentences that I had imposed as a district court justice. Is he suggesting that someone who urinates on an elderly woman travelling home on a bus late at night, sings sectarian songs and then threatens that woman as she is being led away, should not get jail, or that someone who charges around the 14th floor of a multistorey block of flats, hammering on doors with a hatchet at 3 o'clock in the morning—both offenders having a fair schedule of convictions—should not be locked up? Surely not. There must be realism, and there is room for an awful lot more of it in the criminal justice plan.
I apologise for being a few minutes late this morning, due to some technical difficulties with my computer.
Scotland's criminal justice plan set out a comprehensive approach to reforming our criminal justice system and making our communities safer. It recognised and promoted the value of community regeneration and the process of reducing crime. It set out the Executive's ambition to make respect, both for the individual and for our communities, the central theme of its reform of the criminal justice system.
I want to focus on the important part that community regeneration can play in reducing both crime and the fear of crime. I shall also speak briefly about the impact of antisocial behaviour orders and initiatives such as the youth court. The criminal justice plan recognises the link between crime and disadvantage, and I welcome an approach that views the Executive's community regeneration funding as a central part of the effort to reduce crime in our communities.
As members may recall from my members' business debate on the just youth intergenerational DVD, providing relatively low-level funding for youth work can have a positive impact in our communities. Efforts to reduce unemployment, to improve access to education and to build stronger communities can have only a positive impact on crime levels in our communities. Community wardens and similar initiatives are beginning to make an impact on the communities that I represent. The wardens who patrol Craigneuk and Petersburn in Airdrie are building strong links with the community. In fact, they have even recruited some school children from the local community school to become junior wardens, who are involved in basic duties such as tidying up the local park and reporting any vandalism that has taken place. That is an excellent example of community involvement, encouraging young people to have a sense of responsibility for their neighbourhood and the resources in it.
In North Lanarkshire, the Executive's community regeneration funding is helping to provide additional youth work at non-traditional times, such as at the weekends, thereby providing positive alternatives to antisocial and criminal activities. Another service that is provided by North Lanarkshire Council is the antisocial task force, which is headed up by Matt Costello. That is an excellent example of what can be achieved by local authorities using some of the increased powers that have been provided by the Scottish Parliament. North Lanarkshire Council has been criticised in some quarters for the number of antisocial behaviour orders that it has issued, but I would like to ask those critics to explain their concerns to my constituents, whose lives have been made a misery by the thoughtless and destructive actions of a small minority. I know that they all value the work that has been done and the action that has been taken by the antisocial task force.
Interestingly, although North Lanarkshire may issue more ASBOs than any other local authority, it has one of the lowest levels of evictions related to ASBO breaches. Matt Costello is firmly of the opinion that ASBOs are helping to modify and reduce antisocial behaviour, so helping to reduce the need for evictions.
As the criminal justice plan states, reconviction rates in Scotland compare badly with those of our European neighbours. We must find new and innovative ways of breaking the cycle of offending that too many young men, in particular, fall into.
Evidence suggests that community-based sentences can help to reduce recidivism. I highlight the approach that has been taken by the youth courts in both Airdrie and Hamilton. The primary aim of the youth court is to fast track the criminal justice system for young people in order to break the cycle of offending before it has time to begin. Prior to the introduction of the youth courts, too many young people reoffended a number of times before they went to court. The youth court ensures that much less time passes between a suspect being charged and going to court. By challenging criminal behaviour at an early stage, we are much more likely to reduce reoffending rates.
The other key aspect of the youth court is that it ensures that a co-ordinated approach is taken by the courts, the police and social services, and that community and restorative disposals are used where appropriate.
The lessons that have been learned in the youth courts in Lanarkshire could and should be translated to courts throughout Scotland. Those lessons include the need for a co-ordinated interagency approach to criminal justice work and the benefits of a flexible and responsive system. Above all, we must remain open to any initiatives that can help in the battle to reduce reoffending. That is, of course, the central theme of the criminal justice plan.
I congratulate the Executive on the steps that it has taken to make our communities safer and to create a criminal justice system that is fit for the 21st century. I hope that we can all welcome the initiatives to protect vulnerable witnesses and to support witnesses and victims. I hope that we can continue to work together to develop legislation that responds to the concerns of ordinary people in our communities. That is what the Executive has attempted to do so far. I believe that we have made a good start. We will continue to meet the challenges that lie ahead.
Like Karen Whitefield, I apologise for being a touch late and missing some of the minister's speech. In my case, that was due to a slight technical difficulty with my colleagues, but I will move on.
The Scottish National Party began its contribution to the debate by saying, legitimately, that it wanted to see the glass half full rather than half empty. I have tended to begin my speeches in justice debates by praising the Executive's good intentions but lamenting the gap between aspirations and reality. I regret to say that, on the issue of rising prison populations, the question of half full or half empty does not arise. Year after year, we hear members—not only ministers, but Opposition politicians—agree that we lock up too many people who do not need to be in prison, yet the number of people in prison continues to rise.
Like Jeremy Purvis, I feel that short-term sentences, in particular, are increasingly difficult to justify. Can we justify them on grounds of protection? If society needs to be protected from someone because they pose a genuine threat, is a short-term sentence of any use? Is it a real deterrent? Many people on all sides would probably question that. A short-term sentence is not sufficient to enable time to be spent on doing anything meaningful to challenge or change behaviour or on rehabilitation work. Punishment alone is valueless when those three objectives are not achieved. We should look to another option if a particular form of punishment does not achieve those objectives.
Does the member accept the findings of the recent Justice 1 Committee report, which considered short-term sentences and discovered that they provide an opportunity for meaningful rehabilitation work to be undertaken and for literacy and numeracy problems to be identified? That could help the offender when they are released from prison. Rather than being meaningless, the time that is spent in prison is crucial.
The period of the sentence may be sufficient to enable identification of some problems. However, I have seen the report and spoken to people who work in the prison system and, on balance, I believe that the opportunities for rehabilitation are not being realised.
I welcome the report in The Herald today about the idea of splitting sentences between prison and community work. If that proposal is a stepping stone that will act as a way of increasing the uptake of community sentences, I welcome it.
Recently, I attended a seminar that was organised by the Glasgow centre for the study of violence. Annabel Goldie, who has left the chamber, was also there and both of us felt that the seminar was very interesting. The co-director of the centre stated in a recent speech:
"I am concerned that criminal justice is becoming too much a surrogate for effective social policy and that, as a consequence, the shortcomings of … government are being visited on already multiply disadvantaged people in the form of punishment."
The essential message of the seminar was that if we look at the geography of punishment—not where offences are committed, but where the people come from who are imprisoned—we see that very small areas receive vast amounts of money in the form of spending on imprisonment, on which huge amounts of Government money are spent. Those small areas, however, are also the recipients of disproportionately large amounts of money on other services, including benefits, free school meals and social work case loads. Vast amounts of money are poured into those areas, but no strategic view is formed of how the money affects the area. In fact, although each service may act rationally on its own terms, some of the services may work against the overall objectives of others. In the long run, perhaps we must consider whether, in effect, we have a policy of removals and return: X number of young men are taken out of and put back into the same communities. That has a negative impact in the long run.
Bill Butler said that sentencing must never compromise public safety. He is right, of course, but at some point we must ask whether prison compromises public safety. Again, I quote the co-director of the Glasgow centre for the study of violence, who states:
"it is misleading to suggest that by placing someone in prison, you are protecting the public in the long run. You are harming the individual and you are lowering the probability of their surviving legitimately in the community."
John Swinney said that he wants to see offenders' behaviour being challenged effectively. I was pleased that he ended his speech with that sentiment, because it would be far too easy simply to call for longer sentences. I hope that he agrees that if the first 18-month sentence had been served in full, the offender that he mentioned may have been no less likely to go out and commit another offence simply because they had served more time in prison. As John Swinney said, we must ensure that the sentences that we hand out challenge behaviour effectively.
That is my point. We all see individuals who are no more rehabilitated when they come out of prison than they were when they went in. That is the challenge—it is their conduct that must be challenged. Unless we do that, I suspect that the circumstances that I outlined will, regrettably, become ever more commonplace.
We are singing from the same hymn sheet.
I praise the Executive's decision to fund the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation, which the minister mentioned. Can we also try to reduce the worst aspects of the impact of miscarriage of justice on its victims? I have spoken to some victims of miscarriage of justice and to senior representatives of the SPS. One of the issues that they told me about, from their different perspectives, is that prisoners who assert their innocence are—or feel that they are—less able to access support and education services; they may even feel that they are being punished for doing so. Of course, not all those who claim that they are innocent are innocent, but surely the system must acknowledge that a few of them are.
I would like to comment on and agree with much that was in Jeremy Purvis's speech, but I do not have time to do so.
I welcome the opportunity to speak on the first anniversary of the criminal justice plan. There can be no doubt that steady and real progress has been made towards tackling crime through radical reform, concentration of resources and imaginative ideas. Work has been done to join up parts of the system and to make them work more closely together. There has always been a great deal of consensus in the chamber about the areas of the system that require reform, but I am sure that there will continue to be disagreement and debate.
There is consensus among the parties about the action that needs to be taken on women's offending. Most of us agree that too many women are in custody, which does little to advance their lives. We need alternatives to prison in the community, and we need to make faster progress. I commend the Executive for taking the bold step of setting up the time-out centre in my constituency at 218 Bath Street. I expressed concern recently that the centre was not dealing with the women whom it was designed to serve—women who otherwise would have received a custodial sentence. I am pleased to report that that situation has changed as a result of the hard work of the team at 218 working closely with Glasgow sheriffs and showing them that there are alternatives to prison that can make a significant difference. The service is making a difference to the lives of women who have become offenders because of their drug dependency. That is where the hard work lies.
I had the good fortune to examine the case studies of some women at the time-out centre. Obviously, the women will remain anonymous, but I draw to members' attention a case that is not untypical. A woman who was addicted to heroin, cocaine and Valium developed mental health problems and became an offender because of her drug addiction. She was referred to the time-out centre, where she was assessed and received medical treatment. She has a community addiction worker and is now on methadone to take her off her drug habit. For the first time, she is complying with her bail conditions. She is beginning to put her life back together and is maintaining her tenancy. For women offenders, such steps are small but significant. It is important to recognise that hard work and dedicated resources can turn the problem round.
I hope that Trish Godman, who was presiding at the time, will forgive me for getting to my feet when Kenny MacAskill talked about rendition flights, but I was incensed by his suggestion that members in other parties do not condemn torture and do not support the convention on it. The Lord Advocate made it clear in the chamber last week that it is for him, not the Scottish Government, to act when he suspects that crimes are being committed on Scottish soil. If the Lord Advocate has such suspicions, I urge him to act on them. I am not alone in saying that. I commend Menzies Campbell MP for the work that he is doing on rendition flights.
Will the member give way?
Kenny MacAskill did not take an intervention from me, but I will be gracious and let him in.
I am happy to accept that Ms McNeill is sincere in her opposition, as are others. However, there comes a time when it is the job of the Government, not just the law officers, to say that some things are unacceptable. I fully accept her sincerity, but does she agree that, ultimately, the Executive must make it clear to the UK Government that rendition flights are unacceptable and that the police will act on its behalf?
I will compensate for the length of that intervention.
I am obliged, Presiding Officer.
Mr MacAskill suggests that it is the job of the Government to inquire into crimes of torture. A distinction must be drawn. I am sure that if Cathy Jamieson got to her feet, she would say the same as me: she would condemn the suggestion that Scotland would be complicit in any way in flights landing on Scottish soil to assist in the torture of individuals. I am sure that that would be the case, although I am sure that the minister will speak for herself.
Another aspect of the criminal justice plan is the Bonomy reforms. It is difficult to get witnesses and victims to speak up in Scottish courts, because they are frightened, they do not know what to expect, and they have to give up their free time and put themselves on the line. When they have spoken up in the past, witnesses have encountered constant adjournments, which have required them to hang around courts where the facilities are not welcoming. That is why the Bonomy reforms are crucial to the reform of our criminal justice system. Preliminary hearings force the prosecution and defence to prepare their cases and agree points where they can. The hard work of the judge, the prosecution and the defence ensures that witnesses are not needed at that point in the trial. That is a key effect of the reforms. The reforms also require judges to consider discounts in sentencing, resulting in a large number of early pleas, which means that witnesses are not required.
That is not to say that our work is finished, because there are outstanding issues. It is important that the general public understand how sentencing works. Honesty in sentencing is the key, because through that the general public will have more confidence. I commend the work of the Sentencing Commission for Scotland. Having experts examine the problem of sentencing, starting with the work that is required on bail and supervision, is a good idea. As I have said in the chamber before, if someone breaches their bail conditions it should be one strike and they are out. We should be tougher.
We need to examine the work in the lower courts, because that is where most people are dealt with. I look forward to the work that will be done in the Parliament on reforming district and sheriff courts. I hope that next year we will turn our attention once again to making more progress on alternatives to custody, modernising our court system, building modern prisons with humane conditions and further reducing crime.
I will concentrate on the criminal justice plan but, before I do, I will talk about rendition flights. Everyone in all parties condemns torture and any suggestion that this country would be used for rendition flights. Indeed, a Westminster cross-party group on rendition flights is chaired by a Tory, which emphasises the cross-party approach to the matter. However, the practical issue arises of what we can and should do. Kenny MacAskill made a sensible, practical suggestion, based on the historic precedent that was set by the New Zealand Government. We should say to planes that come to Scotland that if they want permission to land at our airports, they must confirm or deny that they are on a rendition flight with someone on board who is en route to a country where they could be tortured. That is a perfectly sensible and practical way forward. I hope that it will be taken up by the Executive and the Government and pursued accordingly.
I turn my attention to criminal justice issues. It is not often that I speak in criminal justice debates; I tend to confine myself to matters economic. However, there is widespread concern in the community about our criminal justice system. Despite all the legislation that has been passed in this place and in the House of Commons, confidence in the criminal justice system is decreasing out there on the street. Indeed, confidence in a number of the institutions on which we rely to deliver the criminal justice system is decreasing. I will mention a number of those institutions and I will do so proportionately and in context.
First, I will talk about the police. As someone who is married to a former police officer, I have the greatest respect for, and totally support, the police force—I have to. However, when my son was the victim of a serious assault in Ayr last boxing day, I was taken aback by how poor the police response was to that incident. I deliberately did not highlight the fact that his father was an MSP or use my position in any way, but eventually the poor level of service, the lack of interest, the lack of response and the broken promises about being contacted were such that I was forced to write to the chief constable to complain. Of course, the minute I wrote to the chief constable, I had five different senior officers from Ayrshire on the phone to me, but it was far too late by then, because the damage had been done.
I was struck not just by the poor service that we received from the police on that occasion but by the low level of police morale, not just in that part of Ayrshire. I believe that that is affecting the effectiveness of the police service. The decrease in police morale is primarily due to two factors. The first of those is the daft sentencing that is sometimes handed down by the courts. John Swinney mentioned a good example of that earlier. It must be demoralising for our police officers to chase the criminals, catch them and get them convicted only for them to be given light sentences for relatively serious crimes. We have a major problem with the judiciary, which has to be sorted out, without undermining its political independence.
Secondly, I was struck by the follow-up, in particular by the time taken to get criminal injuries compensation, which is beyond belief. My son received an offer, but I advised him to turn it down. I had heard through the grapevine that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority deliberately undervalues the amount in the first offer. I told my son to appeal and to appeal again. Within two or three days, the initial offer was doubled. I wonder how many genuine cases there are of people who have been desperate for the money and have accepted the initial offer, although they could have done with the extra money that would have been on offer had they gone through the appeal system. I have dealt with one or two such cases as an MSP, despite the fact that the authority for such matters is reserved.
You have one minute left.
There is a real problem there.
There is also a problem with the Scottish Prison Service and the attitude of its chief executive. Every time a member asks the minister a question about the Scottish Prison Service, the minister never replies, other than—
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
I am sorry—I am in my last minute, unfortunately. The minister never replies, other than to say that she will refer the matter to the chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service. I find that totally unacceptable, as I know do other members. The minister is directly responsible to the Parliament for the Prison Service and she should answer to members of the Parliament for the Prison Service and its many failings.
This has been a wide-ranging debate and I must confess that I am tempted to speak about a couple of matters that have come up in the course of it, in particular the extraordinary rendition flights and the work of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. The Parliament would be better served by holding separate debates on those matters, although I put on record that I welcome the minister's announcement of support for the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation Scotland.
Having listened to the minister's speech and reread the criminal justice plan, as I did yesterday, I endorse what the minister has said about the efforts of those who work in the criminal justice service. In her foreword to the plan, the minister wrote:
"I have been privileged to meet some of the thousands of dedicated people who work hard every day throughout Scotland's criminal justice services, often in very demanding settings."
I am sure that any member who is especially involved in justice matters in the Parliament—unlike Alex Neil—will concur with that sentiment. I have visited about half a dozen prisons in the last year; I have been taken round the premises of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Edinburgh; I have sat in seminars with criminal justice social workers; I have met an abundance of children's panel members, who never fail to impress me with their exemplary attitude and who give so generously of their time and experience; and I have been guided by police officers along Lothian Road late on a Friday night—examining the licensing laws, rather than pursuing any recreational activity. The Scottish criminal justice system is fortunate to have many dedicated professionals, who are all trying their best to make progress and to make a difference. Sometimes, they do not get the recognition that they deserve.
Undoubtedly, there are some thorny issues confronting the criminal justice system, some of which have been highlighted in the debate. For me, none is more thorny than the pattern of repeat offending and the cycle of despair that the criminal justice plan discusses. I believe that the Scottish Executive is genuine in its desire to address that and to make meaningful improvements. I welcome that. The Executive has been inclusive in welcoming contributions from across the political spectrum in the Parliament and in seeking solutions that will work. The question that confronts us in the debate, once again, is why we are making no headway in diverting so many of our young men—it is young men especially who are involved—from offending behaviour and in channelling them towards a law-abiding life, respecting themselves, first of all, and respecting others.
Part of the reason why we are making so little headway is the intractable nature of the problem. We must first appreciate who it is that we are trying to impress and whose ways we are trying to change: it is young men, in the main, from the poorest and most socially deprived backgrounds in Scotland. When we talk about fairness, both in the debate and in the justice plan, we must acknowledge that we are not starting with a clean piece of paper. We must acknowledge the need to be fairer to some than to others, in that some people have had a lower share of the fairness that has so far been distributed. They have had a poor schooling and poor employment chances. They have been failed by various authorities for a long time. They have had poorer physical health and, often, poorer mental health. They have had society's sneering attitude towards them to contend with. Most of those young men act like outsiders because they feel like outsiders and we in society have got to find a place for them.
The criminal justice plan readily admits:
"Crime and disadvantage are linked."
Frankly, I think that the plan would have no credibility if it did not say that. If we spend two minutes in any courtroom or prison in the country, what hits us right away is the backgrounds of so many of the people we come in contact with.
I am not defending what those young men do, in the main, neither am I saying that what they often do is not heinous, or that their victims do not deserve our support, sympathy and, above all, justice, but it is worth pointing out that many of the victims are themselves young men. That is the nature of the culture. I refuse to ignore the realities, to condemn them or to wash my hands of them.
My experience at Low Moss prison this year was salutary. The governor asked me what we politicians expect, sending young men back to prisons such as Low Moss time and again, to squalid and dehumanising prisons, where very little comes of their sentence, and then releasing them back into the very circumstances that they came from, in Possil, Pilton, Ferguslie Park and elsewhere. "What do you expect?" he asked. That question confronts us.
I will touch now on the question of drugs and addiction. It is not long since the sad death of George Best, following his highly publicised defeat at the hands of alcohol addiction. That example of a man defeated by alcohol brings to light how difficult it can be to fight those demons. It is clear to me that putting people in prison to deal with alcohol or drug addictions is entirely the wrong approach. Our prisons are full of people who should not be there and it is entirely inappropriate for society to expect the Scottish Prison Service to deal with them. We need to move on to address that question.
I concur with the points that Bill Butler made about knife crime. That is another intractable problem, which time does not allow me to explore. It is an appalling blight on Scottish society. I welcome an examination of what we can do about it. I am not greatly confident that doubling sentences and banning knives will change behaviour. We must remember that knives are carried in an underground context. I agree with Bill Butler, Tommy Sheridan and others who suggest that the answer will come through getting inside the minds of the young men who carry the knives, explaining the issues to them and undermining the attraction of carrying a blade, emphasising that it is not big and is not the right way to sort out disagreements. I think that the best way to do that is to use peer pressure and the people whom young men look up to so that they consider that they are small by carrying knives and are dissuaded from doing so. It is a matter of influencing them through their role models and peers.
I am not usually part of the community in the Parliament that chooses to become involved in justice debates. However, we have seen some new faces today—Alex Neil being one of them—and there is a lot to be said for taking a fresh look, which I hope I will be able to do. My experience is that although an awful lot of people in the community are largely untouched by justice issues, there is a fear building among them that those issues are not being addressed properly and, consequently, the fear of crime is greater than the possibility of being touched by it directly. That is one of the reasons why we have to address the points raised by the uninitiated.
Members will not be surprised that the first issue I will raise is what is happening because of automatic early release. As a member of the Parliament, I have visited my local prison, Aberdeen, many times over the past six or seven years. In that time amazing steps forward have been taken. The inmates were not quite sewing mail bags the first time I visited, but I saw someone making a fishing net in one part of the prison. During my most recent visit, I saw that that part of the prison has now been completely redeveloped, so the prison can begin to work on some of the problems associated with drink and drug abuse and, in particular, can assist people to get back into work.
The problem is that, too often, people go into Aberdeen prison, begin the programmes and are then released under the automatic early-release scheme. Not having completed the programme successfully, they find themselves back in prison in three or six months' time for committing a similar crime to the one that they committed previously. Members have raised concerns about that already, but I draw slightly different conclusions. First, quite often, early release is of no benefit to the individual concerned, particularly if they have been involved in a programme that might have dealt them serious advantages had they been able to complete it, which is not always possible.
As Kenny MacAskill said, 77 per cent of prison admissions are drink or drug associated. My experience of visiting Aberdeen prison does nothing to indicate anything different. If we are to use custodial sentences, we have to ensure that more of them are served in order to give people a genuine opportunity and achieve all the aims of imprisonment.
Does the member accept that rather than simply having people spend longer in prison without dealing adequately with their transition back into the community, we have to ensure that they are able to deal with their addiction and other problems back in the community? That is the key to trying to ensure that people do not reoffend.
Indeed I agree. However, we have to remember cases such as the one that John Swinney highlighted. My researchers looked through a list of high-profile crimes committed in the past two years and found 10 cases of major assaults or murders that were known at the time to be associated with individuals who had been released under the automatic early-release programme. We have to take such cases into account, because they raise public fears.
The Conservatives have argued consistently for greater police visibility on our streets. The minister has told us time and again that police numbers are going up. We accept that, because the statistics prove it. However, the problem that we have to deal with is the fear that is instilled in individuals.
Another activity in which I have engaged as a member of the Parliament—I know that many colleagues have done the same—is to go out on a weekend evening with a police officer to observe what is going on. I remember being out with a police officer at the shops and the late-night off-licence in Westhill, which is in effect a well-off suburb of Aberdeen. I saw kids of about 12 to 14, or perhaps 16, hanging around outside the shops. They were doing nothing that I felt intimidated by—indeed I took the opportunity to speak to them—but the people who were using the shops felt intimidated. Although there was no justification for the police taking direct action, the fact that there was contempt for the police when they showed up in the area was an example of how difficult it is for the police to have the effect that we want them to have.
I suggest that part of the reason why we see apparent misbehaviour and petty crime is that, too often, young people behave in that way simply because they do not believe that they will be seen or caught, because there are simply not enough police officers on our streets to see them.
Although there is a community in the Parliament that deals with the intricacies and minutiae of justice policy, we must remember that, among ordinary people, there is genuine fear. That fear is perhaps uninformed, but we must be prepared to deal with it and its causes.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. It is important that, a year on from the launch of the criminal justice plan, we take time to consider the progress that has been made and commit to further improvements.
To follow on from a topic that Alex Johnstone and others have discussed, it is the case that few people will be involved in serious crime but, unfortunately, a significant number might be affected by low-level crime. Too often, the perception is that many of us are vulnerable to serious crime. That perception needs to be addressed, because we need to give individuals and communities confidence in the justice system. By showing them what is happening to make the justice system more effective in reducing crime and dealing with the perpetrators of crime, we can re-establish individual and community confidence.
The minister talked about building respect. Re-establishing confidence runs alongside that. She also talked about the record numbers of police and the more efficient use of their time, which is important. It will help to reassure communities that we are responding.
In my constituency of Linlithgow in West Lothian, the use of dedicated community cops is one way in which the relationship between the police and the community is being re-established. Only last week I was told, yet again, how important that relationship is in assisting the police to detect crime. Without the public's information, the police's job would be much harder. Respect, confidence and partnership are central to making the criminal justice system more responsive and more effective.
I will go on to talk about changes to the criminal justice system that have helped victims and witnesses but, before I leave the subject of communities, I must comment on the implementation of the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Act 2004, which I am sure members will understand is close to my heart. As I said earlier, too many people are at risk of low-level crime and the kind of antisocial behaviour that, over time, can destroy the quality of life for individuals and communities.
Having spoken to my colleague Bristow Muldoon, who is MSP for Livingston, I am sure that he will not mind my referring, as Kenny MacAskill did, to the imposition of a dispersal order in his constituency, covering the whole village of Mid Calder. As a fellow member for West Lothian, I work with the police, councillors and officials who have sought the order. They are reasonable people who are responding to a community of people who felt that their lives were being restricted by youths from other areas appearing in Mid Calder looking for trouble. The police were concerned about incidents of assault, vandalism and intimidation and will now have the right, through the dispersal order, to disperse groups of two or more people hanging around between key hours.
I know that, when we discussed the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill, there were people who had reservations about including dispersal powers in the bill. However, the comments of the superintendent who is overseeing the dispersal order should reassure them that those who supported the inclusion of those powers were right to do so. He clearly said that the dispersal order was not about preventing people, including the young people, from going about their everyday business in the village, but that the power would be available to the police to use if people behaved unlawfully. Such comments confirm my view that we should trust the police to use the law appropriately. The people of Mid Calder have welcomed the fact that the police have that power.
I want to talk about the improvement of the experience of victims and witnesses in our criminal justice system. The minister mentioned the reduction in the number of people having to appear as witnesses due to court reform. There is no doubt that, for some witnesses, the prospect of giving evidence in a court can make upsetting circumstances even more traumatic, preventing them from giving their evidence effectively and undermining justice.
The needs of victims and witnesses have been recognised, particularly in the Scottish strategy for victims, which was a recognition of the importance of victims and the need to give them practical and emotional support and provide them with an explanation of the criminal justice system and information on the progress of their case. Victims are interested in their case and should have a voice at all stages of the process. The strategy has been followed by legislation. All the associated initiatives show action that will give victims and witnesses practical and emotional support and access to the relevant information that they seek.
One area that is challenging relates to sexual offences, victims of which are still reluctant to come forward. I urge the minister to continue to do all that she can, in partnership with the police and the courts, to address the way in which such crimes are processed so that more victims can be encouraged to come forward.
I am clear that we all want to live in a safer Scotland, free from the fear of crime. Much has been done to realise that aspiration. I commend the people who work in the police force, the courts and our prisons for the way in which they are rising to that challenge. In particular, I commend the ministers, Cathy Jamieson and Hugh Henry, on their energy and determination to have a criminal justice system that is fit for the 21st century. We have listened to people and communities and we have acted. However, as the minister said, there are no quick fixes and there is still much to do.
It is right that, on the first anniversary of the criminal justice plan, we should consider what progress has been made. The plan covers many different topics but, rightly, focuses on reducing reoffending. It is a national disgrace that, over the past 30 years and through successive Governments, we have got to a state in which 70 per cent of people in prison have had a previous custodial sentence. The criminal justice plan rightly puts the need to address that shocking statistic at the heart of the Executive's legislative programme for this session.
One year ago, I was glad to hear the minister say:
"I am clear that locking up offenders for short periods of time, and releasing them back into the community without action to address their behaviour, is not the answer."
Creating a safer Scotland cannot be done solely by strong, visible front-line policing or through the deterrent of prison.
The minister, Kenny MacAskill, Colin Fox and others have referred to knife crime. Bill Butler talked about knife crime in the west of Scotland, but I have to say that there is a considerable difference between the west of Scotland and my experience in the east of Scotland.
There is a lot of ignorance about the type of knives that can be carried. Recently, I arranged for a group of young male students to visit the Parliament. Sadly, one of them had a knife in his bag, which was searched when he came to the debating chamber. The knife had a 6in-long blade—as sharp as a razor—and a saw at the other end. Both blades were absolutely lethal. When the parliamentary police asked for the knife, he said, "What is wrong with my penknife?" They said that it was not a penknife and took it from him. Later, he contacted me and asked me to recover the penknife. However, when I spoke to the police, they told me that it was a good job that he was visiting the Parliament when the knife was found because, if they had stopped him on the street and found it, he would have been arrested, put in prison overnight and charged the following day with carrying an offensive weapon.
I give that example to demonstrate that people are ignorant about the carrying of knives, which is extremely dangerous. We need to do more to send out that message. Colin Fox mentioned the fact that knife carrying is something that happens in young male culture. I agree with him on that point. We need to get the message across to young men that they cannot afford to carry such knives.
I am a little confused. Is Mike Pringle saying that the young man in question should have been arrested, charged and detained overnight? Surely he is not suggesting that more visits to Parliament are the solution to the problem.
I am definitely not saying that. In that particular instance, the police used their discretion, which is what they should do on all such occasions. I am illustrating that there is ignorance among people about the sort of knives that may be carried. The 129 MSPs in this Parliament, the police and all the other agencies have to put across the message that carrying such weapons is not acceptable.
What we have achieved over the past year has set us on our way to reducing reoffending. The Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill will establish a home detention curfew scheme for low-risk prisoners. Many members have talked about either keeping offenders in prison or keeping them or out of prison. I suggest that we should do as much as possible to keep some of the young men—the people in question usually are young men—about whom we are talking out of prison. One thing is for certain: if we can keep someone out of prison, we are doing them a big favour, because there is no doubt that prison teaches people how to become better criminals.
New arrangements are being put in place to manage the risk from sex offenders, and community justice authorities have been set up to deal with the situation locally to ensure that there is cross-working between local authorities.
In her speech today, the minister said that a year is a long time for people who suffer from antisocial behaviour. Kenny MacAskill illustrated a serious problem in Mid Calder. Of course, as he suggested, solving the problem in Mid Calder might simply move the problem outside that area.
I am not sure why but, this year, there seems to have been an escalation in antisocial behaviour in certain parts of my constituency. Like others, I have said this before but I will say it again: the young people who are involved in antisocial behaviour are an extremely small minority. Most young people in our communities are well behaved and are contributing greatly. However, we have to address those who cause problems. In my constituency, the police have set up a special unit between now and Christmas to try to get the problem under control. I can give an example of the problem in the area. The wife of someone who works in the Parliament went to Gracemount leisure centre to collect her young daughters, but hastily got back into her car when a group of about 15 or 16 people—most of whom were under 16—started stoning the car.
One minute.
The first anniversary of the plan should be about looking forward rather than back. In this session, the proposed sentencing bill will, I hope, introduce a new regime for the release and supervision of offenders.
Jeremy Purvis, Patrick Harvie and others talked about prison sentences and the fact that 21 per cent of those in prison serve sentences of fewer than 60 days. Large numbers of women are in Cornton Vale prison for fine default. Pauline McNeill mentioned a group in her constituency that deals with women and offending. That sounds like a good example that could be rolled out elsewhere.
Another key problem in the system is the role that drugs play. The Liberal Democrats welcome the 23 per cent extra funding for rehabilitation and drug testing and treatment orders in the period up to 2007, but we need to ensure that each person gets the help that they need.
The Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill will introduce mandatory drug testing and referral for those who are arrested for drug-related offences. What we do not need is the knee-jerk reaction of the Tories, who play their zero tolerance approach in Scotland while their new leader supports the downgrading of cannabis.
This has been an interesting debate. Mr Purvis made by far the most memorable comment when he asked members to believe that, as a Liberal Democrat, he is not soft on crime.
Despite the upbeat comments from the Minister for Justice, the sad truth is that, one year on from the publication of the criminal justice plan, it has been tested and found wanting. The potential shortcomings and problems with each of its five chapters were highlighted a year ago, but they have not been addressed.
Chapter 1 of the plan is on protecting communities and preventing crime. Although the minister confirmed that there has been additional funding and an increase of 434 police officers in Scotland, the pressure and the expanded workload that result from, for example, the application of the European convention on human rights, the Macpherson report and the threat of terrorism mean that there are still only 145 police officers on our streets at any time. That is a worrying and totally unacceptable situation, which the Executive has failed to rectify.
I understand the difficulties and pressures that the police face, but it is simply not good enough for the Conservatives to continue to use figures that are not accurate. We know that the figure that Margaret Mitchell gave is a crude misinterpretation of figures that were given in a report by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary for Scotland in March 2002. Those figures ignore police who are on patrol in cars and intelligence officers who direct operations. The report also made it clear that some 30 per cent of police officers were operational in divisions and in uniform in the previous 24 hours. A recent—[Interruption.] I am sorry, Presiding Officer, I realise that I am perhaps making a speech. I have a couple of other points that I wish to make, but perhaps the deputy minister can make them when he sums up.
Indeed. That would be helpful. I will compensate Mrs Mitchell for the time taken.
The minister's long-winded explanation simply confirms that there are not enough police on our streets at any given time. That is all that she has told us today.
It is little wonder that, in the west of Scotland and elsewhere, knife crime has reached epidemic proportions. The much-heralded intention to get to grips with the problem, which has correctly been described as a cancer in society, has been watered down. We are one year on, but the five-point action plan has still not been fully implemented and, in reality, the tough new four-year maximum sentence for possession has become a two-year sentence because the Executive—aided and abetted, it has to be said, by the other main parties in the Parliament—has refused on four separate occasions to end automatic early release.
Furthermore, even though there have been 11 publications on alcohol misuse in Scotland since the criminal justice plan was published, the Executive still does not have a comprehensive alcohol strategy in place.
Chapter 2 of the criminal justice plan is on tacking drugs in our communities, but I am afraid that progress in that area is no more encouraging. The First Minister admits that we have no idea how many rehabilitation places there are in Scotland, yet the criminal justice plan states that the Executive will
"Implement the comprehensive range of actions within the Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Review."
Worse still, we know that the number of methadone scripts have reached an all-time high.
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
If the member does not mind, I will press on. [Interruption.] I will not take an intervention from Mr Purvis.
Surely we should give long-overdue priority to moving the estimated 19,000 drug addicts who are parked on methadone away from their dependence on methadone, via the harm reduction programme, to rehabilitation programmes that are designed to achieve total abstinence. Quite simply, every pound of the £11 million that is spent on methadone beyond the legitimate and necessary six-month stabilisation period is a pound that could and should have been spent on rehabilitation programmes and places.
Will the member take an intervention?
I have said that I will not take an intervention.
I turn to the final three chapters of the criminal justice plan. Chapter 3 is on the reform of Scotland's courts. It may be too soon properly to judge whether the Bonomy reforms are delivering more efficient, faster and more visible justice but, as Pauline McNeill pointed out, the early indications are encouraging. However, the progress of some aspects of the Vulnerable Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2004 is less clear. It is worrying and frankly unacceptable that it was only after the act was passed that it was discovered that special measures involving a commissioner taking evidence from certain witnesses might not be covered by the special protections that are provided for under the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. We must ask why that was not pointed out during the passage of the 2004 act.
Chapter 4 is on effective interventions and sentences that fit the crime. I do not agree with Bill Butler. I find it difficult to understand how prioritisation of the introduction of home detention curfews will do anything to aid early intervention or to ensure that the sentence that is dished out fits the crime. In fact, the reverse is almost certain to be the outcome of this ill-conceived measure, which, rather than aiding early intervention to cut crime, detracts from the opportunity to deliver effective rehabilitation programmes in prisons and eliminates that opportunity when the individual is confined to home.
Chapter 5 is on the delivery of integrated services for managing offenders. Rather than concentrating on new structures, the Executive's priority should have been to ensure that adequate resources are in place to deliver continuity of service in rehabilitation programmes. That crucial objective will be effectively achieved in Scottish prisons only if contingency plans are put in place to cover staff shortages.
In conclusion, with the 2004-05 statistics showing a record number of crimes and offences in Scotland, and with a crime being committed every 29 seconds, there is no room for complacency.
I will focus on Scotland's drug abuse problem. At the outset, I emphasise the obvious fact that I do not bring an eight-minute solution. My speech cannot deliver that, just as the minister said in her speech that the plan is very much a work in progress and that, after 12 months, it is far from complete. The most complex problems—which are precisely what we have in the criminal justice system—cannot be solved by quick fixes, simplistic solutions or political knee-jerk actions.
I welcome the fact that the Solicitor General has done us the courtesy of being with us throughout the debate and listening to what we have said. I know that members who addressed issues about the court system will welcome the fact that the Solicitor General was in the chamber to hear their remarks.
I see that Miss Goldie has, at last, returned and I welcome her back to justice debates and engagement with justice policy. I note that since the beginning of the summer recess she has asked only two questions on criminal justice, compared with 25 questions from her justice spokesperson. My colleague Kenny MacAskill has asked 26 and I have asked 67, so we know where the real action on criminal justice is taking place. Indeed, the minister has answered more than 360 questions on criminal justice during that period. The issue of criminal justice engages people throughout the Parliament—even Tommy Sheridan has asked two questions on it during that period, and his colleague Rosemary Byrne has asked six.
There is much with which we agree in chapter 2 of the criminal justice plan, which was published more than a year ago. There are little chinks of light here and there. Paragraph 2.2 of the plan reported that there were 56,000 injecting heroin users. After a year, that appears to have reduced to 51,000. However, that is perhaps one area in which we seem to have some understanding in a near-vacuum of knowledge in the field. The minister said that the plan was not a 12-month plan and that we should judge the Executive by its actions.
On rebuilding respect and confidence, 84 drugs networks were smashed, which is excellent because it strengthens the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency. The minister deserves two gold stars; it is exactly the right thing to be doing.
On the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, it is always welcome to get a penny out of a drug baron's pocket, but I have compared the amount that is being recovered and found that it is less than the fines that have been levied by Aberdeen sheriff court alone, which puts our modest achievements in context. Recovering that money is difficult and more effort is required. More resources for the SDEA will be very welcome and we in the SNP will support that.
In my questions during the past few months, I have asked about a number of issues about which we have a disturbing knowledge vacuum. I will compare and contrast what the Executive says with—it is unusual for me to commend this source—what is coming out of the strategy unit at 10 Downing Street. The strategy unit publishes an annual report of more than 100 pages that explains the situation south of the border and makes some tangential reference to what happens in Scotland.
There is some good news in the answers to my questions. The Executive is, through the Home Office drugs strategy delivery group, working to involve foreign Governments and other organisations to identify ways in which we can reduce the supply of illegal drugs. That is very welcome, difficult, long-term action that illustrates perfectly that drug problems in Scotland do not stand apart from those in the wider world.
I am sure that the member has seen the HMIC report. Table 12 on page 96 of that report shows the positive effect. In 1996-97, the police recorded 39 offences of illegal importation. In 2004-05, there was one offence.
Of course that is what the table shows. However, the strategy unit's 2003 estimates show that the annual profits of an importer are, on average, £2.5 million. A distributor will earn £1 million and so it goes on. We can therefore see that there is a very significant problem.
It is estimated that 34 tonnes of heroin and about 30 tonnes of cocaine are brought into the UK annually. According to the strategy unit, seizures in the UK are at around 10 per cent.
Let us consider the profit margins in the drugs sector. Gucci, a hugely high-margin retailer, has a profit margin of 30 per cent. The strategy unit estimates the profit margin of the drugs industry to be at around 58 per cent.
When compared to the strategy unit's information, the information that we have in Scotland is extremely modest. I asked the Scottish Executive whether it had been contacted by people who are willing to conduct research on the drugs trade. When it came down to it, the answer was "Mebbe aye, but we're nae doin' it."
I asked what contacts we had had with the Home Office to determine the size of the UK drug trade. The answer was, "Yes, it has been in touch," but that was about it.
I asked for an estimate of the size of the illegal drugs trade in Scotland, but there are no current plans to compile one. However, the strategy unit south of the border provides precisely such an estimate: it is approximately £16 billion—the range is £12 billion to £20 billion. In such an information vacuum, we are unlikely to raise the issue up the agenda in the way that is required. It must rise up the agenda.
We recognise that about 1,200 youngsters in Scotland are at the root of the antisocial behaviour on which this Parliament has spent so much time. Sceptical as we in the SNP were, we supported the bill on that subject. However, the reality is that there are 50,000 drug users across Scotland, and they are responsible for three quarters of crime. Let us put the drug problem into context. It is much bigger than the problem of antisocial behaviour and touches every community. The size of the industry makes it comparable to, if slightly smaller than, the size of the tourism industry in Scotland. I hope that, over the coming year, we will see someone really engage with that. I say that in an entirely non-partisan way. We will work with the minister. She knows that I can work with her on subjects in which we have a common interest. Everyone in the chamber and everyone in Scotland has a common interest in this subject and we must work together to remove the problem.
The debate has been interesting, if strange in some ways. There have been some excellent speeches and some that had very little relevance to the subject that we are discussing this morning. However, most people would agree that it is right to try to set out some kind of strategic framework for how we intend to proceed, to reflect from time to time on what we have done and to look forward to what more needs to be done.
It is also right to put into context what we are trying to achieve. We know that there are social problems in Scotland—they have been discussed in many debates. We know about some of those problems and we acknowledge that low-level antisocial behaviour is a real problem in many communities. We also acknowledge that serious crime is a problem in far too many areas. It is right that we should take a comprehensive approach to that.
It is right that we should look at what our court system is doing and at what we do in our prisons. It is right that we should ask who should be going to prison and what happens when people come out of prison. It is also right to consider the broad issues that are associated with drug taking and misuse. We should not just be tackling criminality, but dealing with the human problems.
It is therefore right that we should take the widest possible look at structures, systems, resources and then policies. That is what we are trying to do in reflecting on the past and looking forward. We are very clear that we want to support the decent people in Scotland who are working hard to protect their families and to bring up their children as decent people in a decent community. We want young people to be able to avoid being drawn into criminality. We therefore have to make sure that the social structures are available to support people and that the mechanisms exist that can deal with people as and when the need arises.
In a sense, we would argue that it is not a choice between dealing with crime and dealing with the underlying causes of crime; it is a question of doing both. We know that, tragically, notwithstanding some of the statistics and the examples that we have heard this morning, although crime can happen in the most affluent communities in Scotland, the vast proportion of crime and antisocial behaviour weighs heavily on our most disadvantaged communities. Being tough on crime should also mean looking at what we do to improve not just the quality of life of people who live in those communities, but the life chances of those who do not have an opportunity to realise their full potential. The Executive acknowledges that it has a leadership role and that, notwithstanding the fact that there will be some specific areas of disagreement, there is broad support for us.
I will touch on some of the speeches that members gave this morning. There was probably very little with which I could disagree in about three quarters of Kenny MacAskill's speech, which was well constructed. However, I must address two issues that he raised at the end of it. I will not go into a huge amount of detail on the issue of air weapons, although I note that he said that the SNP's view is quite clear. Does it want a ban? Well, I do not think so. Does it want registration? Well, maybe. Does it want licensing? Well, possibly. Yes, it certainly looks as if the SNP's view on the issue is absolutely clear.
Will the minister give way?
No, because I have to address other issues that the member will no doubt want to comment on.
Kenny MacAskill then touched on rendition flights. For most of his speech, he concentrated on the criminal justice plan; however, at the very end, he felt that he had to be politically opportunistic and get in a soundbite for the press release or the headlines on a matter that has nothing to do with what we are discussing today. He made a number of very serious allegations, some of which Pauline McNeill has addressed.
It is right that we put on record a number of points. First, the Minister for Justice, the First Minister and the Executive have explicitly stated that we find torture abhorrent and do not support it in any shape or form. If there is evidence that torture has taken place, it should be—and must be—dealt with as soon as possible in the most vigorous manner.
Secondly, the Lord Advocate has explicitly stated that there is no role for Scottish ministers in dealing with these matters. However, any evidence of criminality should be reported to the police. It is up to them and, in the final analysis, the Lord Advocate to determine whether a serious crime has been committed.
Kenny MacAskill said that he wanted action. However, as I listened to him, it became clear that he did not want action from us, because much of what he talked about related to reserved matters and has nothing to do with the Executive. He was asking purely for words. I suggest that there is a huge amount of posturing in that.
The minister's remarks on air weapons were flippant and, frankly, scandalous. Our position on the matter is quite clear. However, I will not waste any more words on that point.
On rendition flights, I made it clear that a chief constable would need to be brave to investigate such incidents. However, if we are to uphold our values and legal system, we should say to the Americans that, if they do not assure us that American planes are not carrying those people when they come to Scotland, the Executive will fully support chief police officers in carrying out their lawful duty. At the same time, the Executive must tell the UK Government that we find the situation entirely unacceptable and that if American planes come here they will face boarding and investigation.
I will make my position and the position of the Executive very clear. Chief constables who act independently will have our full support in continuing to do so. We will not attempt to interfere politically with their operational decision making. If they believe that a crime has been committed, they will have our full support in investigating that crime. It will then be a matter for the prosecuting authorities to take things forward. As Cathy Jamieson has said more than once, if Kenny MacAskill or anyone else has evidence that a crime has been committed, they should bring that evidence forward at the earliest opportunity and the appropriate authorities will deal with it. We are quite clear that, whatever happens, torture has no place in a modern country. The UK Government and others have raised—and I am sure will continue to raise—many of these issues with the US Government.
On the antisocial behaviour issues that Kenny MacAskill and others raised, the Executive's record is well documented. As Mary Mulligan has said, we were right to act on the matter.
I do not have the time to go into any detail on the comments made by Annabel Goldie and the Tories but, frankly, they sounded like a worn old record and had nothing new to contribute to the debate. Cathy Jamieson has made it very clear that the numbers of police on patrol are not what the Tories have claimed. I should also point out that they seemed to want us to direct chief constables on how they should use the record numbers of police. However, chief constables must exercise their operational independence on the matter. Moreover, the Tories' proposal to have directly elected conveners of police boards is bizarre; in fact, it is nonsense and will never work. It is probably one of the most peculiar of the many peculiar ideas that they have come up with.
I am sorry that I have no time to address some of the other issues that members have raised. We are on track with what we are doing. We have established a proper framework in that respect; however, as Cathy Jamieson has said, although we acknowledge some of our successes, we must admit that there is still much more to do.