Alternatives to Custody
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-562, in the name of Pauline McNeill, on the former Justice 1 Committee's report into alternatives to custody. I call on Pauline McNeill to speak to and to move the motion on behalf of the current Justice 1 Committee.
The debate that we are about to have comes from the work of the Justice 1 Committee in the previous session. It is the former members of that committee whom we should thank for their thorough report on alternatives to custody, which comprises two volumes and at least 15 recommendations. Michael Matheson represents our only continuity with the previous Justice 1 Committee; I am sure that he will provide a sharper insight into why the committee came to its recommendations. My main aim was to allow the debate to take place.
The current Justice 1 Committee and Justice 2 Committee, when discussing their future work programmes, thought it important that one of the committees should bring the report on alternatives to custody to the Parliament for debate. They wanted to do so first, to ensure that the good work of the previous Justice 1 Committee did not go to waste; secondly, to give the Executive an opportunity to respond to the report on the record and, thirdly, to establish the views of the Parliament in order to determine what further work might need to be undertaken by the new Justice 1 Committee to take the report forward.
We want to ensure that any work that the Justice 1 Committee goes on to undertake has a new focus, and we are keen to hear any new points that might be made in the course of the debate, perhaps in relation to other jurisdictions that have been more successful on community sentencing. That might give us greater depth in ascertaining what options might be available.
It is important to note the background to the debate. The justice committees heard last week from the chief inspector of prisons for Scotland that Scotland's prison population was at an all-time high of 6,723 prisoners in May 2002. The total available accommodation is 6,055 places. People are being sent to prison for longer and more people are being remanded; a staggering 49 per cent of all receptions into Scottish prisons in 2002 were on remand. In Barlinnie prison, half of the total number of prisoners were on remand. Scotland has the highest use of custody in Europe, apart from England and Wales.
We heard from the chief inspector of prisons that overcrowding is now so serious that it is affecting our ability to deliver rehabilitation and better conditions, although conditions are currently quite humane in Scottish prisons. Conditions are made more severe by the increase in overcrowding, and its impacts on staffing mean that family visits are being curtailed. Such visits are an important aspect of prisoners' lives and, vitally, of their rehabilitation.
On the figures that she has just related to Parliament, does Pauline McNeill recall the early days of the then Justice and Home Affairs Committee, when it discussed these issues with the then Minister for Justice and with representatives of the prison authorities? Did not we forecast then that such overcrowding would arise, and did not those witnesses take a rather complacent view of the situation at the time?
Mr Gallie is asking me to recall a debate that I think was held four years ago. My recollection is that, in the course of our cross-examination of witnesses from the Scottish Prison Service, we were able to draw out the fact that an increase in the number of prisoners was expected—that has come to fruition.
The work that was undertaken on women prisoners by the ministerial group on women's offending showed that about 50 per cent of the female prison population are fine defaulters. Consensus has developed in the Parliament over the years that women's offending must be a priority for the Scottish Executive. The will exists, but we need to ensure that we are taking the right steps and that it is a number 1 priority. Too many women are locked up in prisons while alternatives to that should be made available.
Those are some of the background issues that have focused our minds more sharply on alternatives to custody.
Regardless of the debate, we should address the problems in our prisons. That is not a reason to turn to alternative sentencing, but it is a reason to debate what could be done better in our criminal justice system and to debate how we can give the courts more options and more confidence in alternative disposals. If the current trend continues, we will be required to build more prisons, to have a dramatic change in policy or to consider a change in the way in which our courts view the effectiveness of community sentencing and alternatives to prison. That is the theme of today's debate.
Recent figures show that 82 per cent of prisoners serve less than six months in prison. The report addresses that issue. There has been much talk about the benefits of short-term sentencing and many witnesses have argued that the Scottish Prison Service cannot rehabilitate offenders within a short period—the implication being that we should use alternatives to custody, which have a better prospect of tackling offending behaviour. The former Justice 1 Committee recommended greater use of such alternatives. I support the committee's position, but I offer one word of caution. The Sheriffs Association points out that although it is true that short sentences do not present an opportunity to reform offenders' behaviour,
"The reconviction figures of those who receive a custodial sentence are bound to be bad"
because
"We are talking about people who are in no mood to co-operate with society."—[Official Report, Justice 1 Committee, 18 February 2003; c 4626.]
I agree, in the sense that we must not generalise by saying that all short-term sentences are valueless. We must indicate specifically which sentences we want to do something about.
As we heard from the Sheriffs Association, prison should be the last and best resort. We have heard on the record much important information about how sheriffs view short-term sentencing and we need to get to the root of why there is not more reliance on community sentences. Does it really boil down to a lack of confidence in the provision?
In our analysis of what is best for society, we must, as well as taking care to consider the best outcome for the offender, consider the outcome from the victim's viewpoint. To keep that balance right, it will still be necessary to use short-term sentences. The test should be whether a community sentence that is in the interests of the offender because it allows the offender to reduce offending behaviour is also in the interests of the victim. That is a complex balance to maintain, but the principle is important.
Safeguarding Communities-Reducing Offending and others have argued that prison should be an option only where it is required for the safety of the public. That is a simplistic argument and I do not entirely accept it as the only reason for a custodial sentence. Crimes of dishonesty such as house-breaking and theft may not indicate that an offender is a violent person per se and the public may not need to be protected from them. However, prison may still be appropriate in cases where the victim's private space has been violated by robbery and their personal possessions have been rummaged through, because of the harm that the offender has caused—especially if they have a long history of crime.
I believe in restorative justice and I commend the Executive on the work that it has done on that policy. However, restorative justice can benefit society and victims only if victims agree to engage in the process.
Currently there are five community disposals, although those are not available to all courts. Since the Executive was established, it has introduced two new sentences. Probation orders are designed primarily to allow an offender to address social problems. Community service orders, on which this debate will focus, offer an explicit and direct alternative to custody. Drug treatment and testing orders are beginning to be rolled out this year and there are also restriction of liberty orders.
Drug treatment and testing orders have proved to be very effective, because they are a seriously high-tariff disposal and make the connection between offenders and drug addiction. It is important to review constantly how we apply such orders, because we must ensure that there is early intervention. I understand that to be admitted to a DTTO programme an offender must have committed a sufficient number of offences. Others who have offended four or five times may not qualify. Perhaps early intervention would be more appropriate.
The supervised attendance order is designed to reduce the number of short-term admissions to custody for fine default. I am sure that this afternoon the Executive will focus on the announcement that it has made and that the Parliament will welcome that. In the previous Justice 1 Committee's report, sheriffs argue that in almost all cases the courts do not impose a prison sentence unless they are of the opinion that no other means of disposal is appropriate. However, in order to satisfy the test of appropriateness, the alternatives must be credible and the court must be confident that the community order will commence, that the probation will be supervised and that the offender will attend for rehabilitation.
It is inevitable that there is scepticism about alternatives to imprisonment, because sentencing is often based on the offender's history. Sheriffs are discouraged from using community sentences if there is a problem with the way in which schemes are being run, if there is a delay in commencement or if there is non-compliance with that sentence. Sheriffs often find that there is a problem with a particular community scheme when a social inquiry report is presented that shows that an offender has re-offended.
Sheriff Lockhart said in his evidence to the committee:
"It is difficult to gauge effectiveness in the sense of preventing people from reoffending … The people who are sent to prison are likely to commit other crimes when they are released, because they have already reached the end of the line."
As the current justice committees identified when they were discussing the budget process, it is difficult to assess the incidence of recidivism among those who have been given a prison sentence as against those who have been given a community sentence, because we are not necessarily comparing like with like. We suggested for that reason that there should be more research.
Sheriff Lockhart went on to say:
"There is no question of reforming an offender's behaviour during a short custodial sentence. Such a sentence is seen as a punishment for failure to co-operate with the other facilities that are available." [Official Report, Justice 1 Committee, 18 February 2003; Col 4626.]
In my view, support for alternatives to custody rests not just on the need to reduce the prison budget or the prison population, but on the fact that community sentencing can be more effective than prison in some cases; we need to ensure that a sophisticated approach is taken.
The previous Justice 1 Committee made a number of recommendations, many of which it is important to consider. That committee suggested that the Executive should map annually a clear picture of what programmes are available and what they can achieve. Although the Executive provides that information, it is important to make it available annually.
Fine defaulting is the main reason for court disposals in our criminal justice system, so I welcome the Executive's announcement this morning that it will recommend a supervision order, rather than prison, as the proper disposal for fine defaulting.
The use of electronic tagging orders is a new disposal that has been available to the courts since May and which has proven to be an effective community sentence. However, if we are going to use electronic tagging for remand prisoners, we need to ensure that the same philosophy applies. Just because it works for those who have been convicted, it does not necessarily follow that it will be effective for those who are on remand. However, it is an important option.
The previous Justice 1 Committee made a number of important recommendations, all of which are worthy. I commend the voluntary sector for the work that it has done on community sentencing and I know that it will be expected to do more work on that. I support whole-heartedly the former Justice 1 Committee's report.
I move,
That the Parliament notes the 3rd Report 2003 (Session 1) of the former Justice 1 Committee, Inquiry into Alternatives to Custody (SP Paper 826).
I thank the former Justice 1 Committee for producing the report and I congratulate it on its work. The report is an excellent example of a committee of the Parliament not just scrutinising and holding the Executive to account, but trying to contribute to shaping policy and influencing practice throughout Scotland.
The subject is important and the debate is timely. As Pauline McNeill said, there have been a number of developments since the committee did its work, but it is obvious that much more needs to be done. The report provides a sound analysis and it is broadly consistent with what the Executive is pursuing.
We recognise that some individuals need to be imprisoned to protect the public, but we also have a responsibility to provide effective alternatives. That is in line with the report's first recommendation, which is that
"community disposals should be actively promoted … as an alternative to short term prison sentences".
The committee concluded—I agree with this—that short-term prison sentences offer limited opportunity for rehabilitation. They help to fuel the increase in the prison population and they put a burden on local services when prisoners are released back into the community, sometimes without having had any support work done with them. We have to ask whether that is the best that we can do.
We have already made progress by extending the range of community sentences that are available to the courts. We have introduced restriction of liberty orders and electronic tagging throughout Scotland, as Pauline McNeill said. Drug testing and treatment orders will be available nationally by the middle of 2005. We have built on the success of DTTOs in the pilot drug courts in Glasgow and Fife. As the partnership agreement says, we will use that model for drugs courts, as appropriate, where they are needed. The findings of the independent evaluation of the pilots will inform our decisions on future policy on this matter.
Over the past four years, we have succeeded in creating a wide range of community sentences that target specific offences and the circumstances of specific offenders. It is encouraging that the committee's report concluded that, although there may be scope for new community disposals, it might be more effective to focus on the more efficient use of existing sanctions. That is very much in line with what we mean to do in the next four years; we want to develop and provide effective programmes that have been shown to work in reducing reoffending.
Just as the committee wants us to do, we want to focus our efforts on the needs of certain problem groups in society. We are introducing measures to deal with fine defaulters, who are a special group of short-term prisoners. We will pilot schemes that make mandatory use of supervised attendance orders for certain fine defaulters. We will withdraw the option of custody and we expect to see a significant impact on the number of fine defaulters who go into custody.
The time-out centre in Glasgow will be fully open within the next few weeks. That centre will offer an alternative to prison for women from Glasgow and the surrounding area. It combines a detox facility, a residential unit and day programmes, as well as providing health services and outreach to other community facilities. When it is fully operational, the centre will have the capacity to cater for 75 women a day and the residential unit will have 14 beds.
Similarly, in June, we set up a youth court in Hamilton to deal with persistent 16 and 17-year-old offenders. Early indications are that the process is working well. Young people are being fast-tracked into the court and on to programmes that are designed specifically to address their offending behaviour. Our aim is to get those young people off the conveyor belt of crime and to give much-needed respite to communities that suffer at their hands.
I was pleased last month to announce new funding for arrest referral schemes. Arrest referral allows individuals who have drug-misuse problems to gain access to treatment at the earliest stage in the criminal justice process. The scheme will operate within police cells or court premises and will involve close co-operation with police and court services. We now have a full range of interventions for offenders whose crimes are linked to drug addiction—for people who have their first contact with the law, through to people who have long histories of drug addiction and acquisitive crime to feed their habits.
Is the minister concerned about the level of drug addiction among people who appear before the district courts in Scotland? Does he feel that adequate measures exist to bring those people into some system of rehabilitation and monitoring?
I am generally concerned about the number of people with drug addiction who appear before all our courts. At the moment, we are considering the district courts as part of a wider review. However, the Executive has made it clear that we are determined to punish and imprison those who need to be punished and imprisoned and to help those who need help and can be turned away from their criminality, irrespective of which court they come before.
Many of us share the minister's concern that we should put in prison only those who require it. Criminal justice system social workers are key to any such schemes. I am not sure of the current figures, but the figures for 1999 show that there were 627 such social workers, in 2000 there were 624 and in 2001—the last year for which figures were given to me in a parliamentary answer—there were 612. The minister might not be able to tell me now about the present number of criminal justice social workers, but—if we are considering the alternatives that he mentions—I would like to know whether the figures are going down.
That is not my understanding. I will try to get some more information for Christine Grahame on social work, but we are certainly investing more. During the past few years, we have encouraged more people to take social work courses and we are looking to see what we can do to increase the number of social workers that are available. We know that they are important to the process.
The point that I was making is that we now have a full range of interventions for offenders whose crimes are linked to drug addiction, from the point when they first come into contact with the law right through to those who have a long history of drug addiction and acquisitive crime to feed their habits. That has been supported by an increase in resources; by 2005-06, funding for those services will have more than doubled over the previous five years and will stand at £88 million.
We want to see results. Despite record investment and an increasing number of community services, we have not achieved the reduction in the prison population that we want, which is why the Executive has concluded that a more radical approach is needed. We are setting up the sentencing commission under Lord MacLean and, on the single-agency debate, we are considering how to bring together some of the criminal justice social work issues, such as what happens in prisons and how to reduce reoffending. We believe that there should be better synergy between those who work in the different processes. We need to find appropriate structures to support people.
We will also be informed by the work that the former Justice 1 Committee commissioned on public attitudes to sentencing. In the context of this debate, it is interesting that that study found that the more information participants were given, the more open they became to the use of alternatives to custody.
In conclusion, I thank the former Justice 1 Committee for its excellent report, which gives us much to ponder and points the way forward. It coincides with much of what the Executive wants to achieve and it will be a catalyst for further action.
As a member of the committee that was involved in carrying out the inquiry, I welcome today's debate. I must confess that I was surprised to read today's Executive press statement, which claimed that this debate on alternatives to custody is an Executive debate, despite the fact that it was initiated by the Justice 1 Committee. I know that ministers are keen to claim credit for things, but the credit really lies with the committee.
Scotland and many other countries around the world have come to treat imprisonment as more than just a possible answer; it is treated as a solution to tackling the problems of crime. In its evidence to the committee, the Scottish Consortium on Crime and Criminal Justice stated:
"prison holds much too central a place in our thinking about criminal justice, when it should be a marginal part of the response."
That highlights the particular problem that we face.
In response to the Justice 1 Committee convener's invitation to provide a sharper insight into the rationale for the inquiry, there were two main reasons why the committee chose to undertake the inquiry. The first reason was the evidence that the committee received during its inquiry into the prison estates review. In my view, it was wrong to carry out a prison estates review without considering wider custodial policy. When one considers that our nation has the third-highest rate of locking people up in Western Europe and that our prison population is predicted to grow by 16 per cent over the next decade, it is clear that to maintain the status quo is not an option.
I believe that the second reason why the committee chose to carry out the inquiry was to show leadership in pushing alternatives to custody, which is one of the routes that the Executive should take. As the report clearly demonstrates, we must ensure that we have sufficient robust community alternatives to tackle the problem of recidivism, by utilising and improving effective community disposal measures.
We must first recognise the reality about short-term prison sentences as an effective solution. Overwhelming evidence was submitted to the committee by the criminal justice forum, the director of the criminal justice social work development centre for Scotland, the Sheriffs Association, academics from a number of institutions and experts in the field, all of whom acknowledged that short-term, six-month prison sentences do little to address the problem of prisoners who are constantly in and out of prison. The evidence revealed that short-term sentences do not provide much opportunity to rehabilitate people and to work with them to prevent reoffending. From my own visits during the prison estates review, I know that short-term prisoners felt that they had little opportunity to address their offending behaviour if they had chosen to do so.
The majority of the evidence that was submitted to the committee suggested that community-based sentences were much more beneficial to society and to the 82 per cent of prisoners who serve less than six months in prison. However, during the inquiry, it became clear that one of the main barriers to the promotion of alternatives to custody was the public's perception that we are going soft on crime.
Sentencing policy must have an element of punishment to it, but it must also be effective in tackling the problem. That is why the committee believed that there is a need to move towards more community-based alternatives; that conclusion had cross-party support.
Does the member agree that considering alternatives to custody is not about being soft on crime but is the "smart option", to quote an earlier press release? I hope that the member will welcome that and will talk constructively about the discussions on a single agency to act on those ideas.
The minister should have given me time to move on. We need a custodial policy that addresses the problem effectively. It is up to the minister to decide whether to use the buzzword "smart". We need an effective system and that is what I seek.
The committee acknowledged that community disposals should be targeted at people such as those who default on fine repayments. I acknowledge the minister's earlier announcement on that. We have our view on the issue of unit fines in tackling that problem. I repeat my concern that supervised attendance orders place a considerable burden on criminal justice social workers, who came before the committee earlier this year and highlighted the problems with the resources that are available to them. That must be addressed.
The judiciary plays a key role in implementing community disposals. We must ensure that our judiciary has the knowledge and confidence to use the available alternatives. During the committee's inquiry, the Sheriffs Association gave clear evidence that there are problems with ensuring that sheriffs have the information they need to support the programmes effectively.
The committee did not have time to consider an issue in which I have a particular interest—periodic detention or weekend prisons. They could make a significant contribution to tackling overcrowded prisons and recidivism. The proposal has worked successfully in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Canada and the United States of America, and I hope that the Executive will consider it.
If we get the balance right between locking up those who should be locked up and working with those who should be in the community and should receive community disposals, we can achieve a balance in our custodial policy that will make Scotland a better place.
I welcome the opportunity to acknowledge the work of the former Justice 1 Committee in compiling such a full and informative report. This is an occasion on which it is helpful to consider not only a certain aspect of law and order in Scotland but the wider picture.
Pauline McNeill spoke eloquently about the report and the current backdrop to it. Unfortunately, alternatives to custody fall to be considered only when people have committed crimes and have been convicted of those crimes and appropriate disposals have to be considered by the court. It is of paramount importance to meet head on the challenge of reducing crime in Scotland. We have a Scotland where a crime is committed every 1.2 minutes.
I think I must have misheard the member. The alternatives to custody inquiry also dealt with remand prisoners who are not convicted.
I thank Christine Grahame for drawing attention to my perhaps sloppy use of text.
This is a Scotland where serious crime exists. Violent crime is up since 1997, vandalism is up since that time, and drugs-related crime is up 37 per cent over the period. Sadly, this is a Scotland where a quarter of our people do not feel safe outside their own front door.
The most important question to be answered is why the Executive is not tackling that problem at grass-roots level by providing more police in our communities to catch those who commit crime and to deter those who are tempted. Our police numbers are now only marginally greater than they were in 1997, but many more obligations fall on our police, which take them out of operational duty. I have referred before in this chamber to the New York experience. We should draw from that the fact that in New York there is one police officer for every seven recorded crimes, whereas in Scotland we have one police officer for every 27 recorded crimes.
Of course, although by taking the same approach we could reduce dramatically the incidence of crime, we shall always have to consider appropriate disposals for those who commit crime. In my judgment, the court has to be the sole determinant of what is an appropriate disposal. As I have stated frequently, if that is a custodial sentence, the sentence served should be the sentence imposed and any element of remission should be earned. Indeed, one of the important views to come out of the Justice 1 Committee's report was the reflection of public attitudes to sentencing, which ranged from public backing for greater truth in sentencing to a lack of understanding by the public about early release, and an increase in cynicism about and distrust of the system.
Among other disposals, we have fines, about which the Deputy Minister for Justice has been voluble. Inevitably, his press release focused attention on that issue, and it is to that issue that I wish to address my remarks. According to a parliamentary answer, the amount of outstanding fines in 2001-02 was £11,533,923. We know from the former minister Richard Simpson that many people expunge their fines by presenting on a Thursday morning, and they are out by Friday—in other words, there is a 24-hour write-off of liability, which is a very smart option. Incidentally, that process costs the taxpayer somewhere between £400 and £500. What is shocking is that non-payment of fines has reached that level.
Does Annabel Goldie accept that there is a difference between the amount of fines that is outstanding, which may be being paid by instalments, and the amount of fines that are written off?
Yes, I accept that there is a difference, but it is also relevant to assess in some quantifiable form the figures that we are talking about. The figure in the answer to the parliamentary question is, by any standards, a very significant figure, and it should not be forgotten by the Executive.
We should also remember that the court has determined the fine having regard to the circumstances of the convicted criminal. The convicted criminal should then pay the fine, and non-payment should be robustly pursued by diligence. Statutory provision exists for that, as does statutory provision to allow for the deduction of fines from convicted criminals on benefit.
The question that the public wants to pose is, how many extra police would have been provided if many of those fines had been paid or ingathered? That is the question that the minister must answer. What effort has been expended on recovering fines? The Deputy Minister for Justice referred to that in his speech, and I know that he referred to it in an earlier interview, but there is little evidence to demonstrate how effective recovery processes have been, and whether they have been instigated to any extent.
What is deeply disturbing is that, because of the apparent inertia in recovering fines, significant numbers of people have ended up in prison. Apart from the legitimate question of whether that is a sensible use of resource, sadly we seem to have fallen into a culture of, "Won't pay, see no need to pay and have no intention of paying. Go direct to jail." That may suit the publicity seekers of this world, such as Tommy Sheridan, but would not much more good be achieved if those fines were pursued—as the law provides for—and the prison option became academic?
Supervised attendance orders, to which the minister referred, raise an important issue. A Conservative Government introduced those orders and affirmed them with the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 but, if I understand the minister's press release correctly, he proposes that supervised attendance orders will become mandatory if there is a fine default. That is objectionable. It is not the power of the Executive to interfere with the proper discretion of the courts.
Please wind up.
If I may conclude, Presiding Officer, I was quite generous with my interventions, so I thought that I might get a little elasticity.
It seems to me that the Executive, in purporting to deal with the problem, is not solving the obvious aspect, which is to do more to collect fines that are due. It is walking away from the real problem, which is how to cut crime in Scotland.
I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate. Like previous members who have spoken, I pay tribute to the work done by the Justice 1 Committee in the previous session of Parliament.
It is clear that there is quite a lot of consensus among key players in the debate, whether they be members of the Justice 1 Committee and Justice 2 Committee, the Executive, the voluntary sector—which does a wonderful job in providing community disposals in the schemes in which they work—or the Scottish Prison Service.
We are talking against a background of a rising prison population—6,700 people in 2002. Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons for Scotland pointed out last week when he spoke to a joint meeting of the Justice 1 Committee and Justice 2 Committee that the major problem facing our prisons today is overcrowding, which has a substantial impact, as it causes stress and tension within our prisons and takes up management time. It also affects the ability to deal with the needs of prisoners and to provide throughcare at the end of their sentences. Crucially, it also hinders effective rehabilitation.
That brings us to why we want to arrest people. We arrest them and put them into custody for a number of reasons. There is an issue of justice, and Pauline McNeill mentioned victims. In this debate, we should never get too far away from the rights of victims. For obvious reasons, it is easy to focus on the rights and needs of prisoners, but we must consider the issue from the balanced point of view of the needs of the justice system overall. We should always remember the needs of the victims. They, along with many of us—I think all of us—want an effective justice system, which delivers a service that will help rehabilitation, so that other people will not fall victim to the criminals to whom they fell victim.
Within the custody system, we must see the need not only for justice but for punishment, public security, rehabilitation and deterrence. In relation to several of those points, we are seeing that prison does not work. Prison is not working as a deterrent, nor is it working in terms of rehabilitation. The chief inspector of prisons for Scotland made that clear last week.
The Justice 1 Committee's report contains a number of important recommendations. One is the need to reduce the use of short-term prison sentences. The highest level of reoffending—55 per cent—is among people who have been sentenced and who have served three to six months in prison. There is a lack of rehabilitation. The proper time and resources are not being spent on people when they serve short-term prison sentences. Where possible—this is not appropriate for everybody—we must move away from short-term sentences and replace them with community sanctions.
Another issue is the imprisonment of fine defaulters—20 per cent of people sentenced to prison are fine defaulters. That tends to go against what we would consider to be natural justice. Many of those people are among the poorest in our society. Many of them are women, who have all sorts of other issues. Many of them are people whom we should be helping because they have drug problems, alcohol problems or a variety of other problems. We must examine the issues behind people's offending behaviour and deal with them. It seems to me that to imprison people for fine defaulting is not only ineffectual but plain wrong, when we could use alternatives such as supervised attendance orders. I welcome the minister's announcement today.
Would a victim of a crime think it is more effective if someone is banged up for a relatively short period of time, comes out and carries on doing the same thing or that it is more effective to put them on an effective community supervision order, which might cause them to address some of the reasons why they offend in the first place? The key point is which option is the most effective. That is the route down which we should be going. We should put in place measures and targets to reduce the number of defaulters in prison and to address their behaviour in other ways.
Another issue is the number of people who are remanded in custody. Half the people who are in our prisons, such as Barlinnie, are on remand. That is a ridiculous state of affairs. The number of people on remand is increasing. Safeguarding Communities-Reducing Offending in Scotland and others suggest that we need to resource bail schemes with some sense of urgency. They point to the fact that 82 per cent of people in some of the bail schemes in which they have been involved did not offend while they were on bail. They also said that not a single one of those people failed to turn up in court. Yet again, it is a question of what is effective.
Restorative justice brings people face to face with the consequences of their crimes. There are very few victimless crimes, but a lot of criminals act as if such crimes exist. Bringing criminals face to face with the victims of their crimes, where the victim feels that that would be helpful to them, would be a good step forward.
The Executive is taking forward a number of those issues. I applaud it for what it is doing. The proposed sentencing commission is to consider bail and remand, the ways in which fines are determined and the effectiveness of means of reducing reoffending—all of those are good moves. Although people have concerns about it, the single correctional agency is worth considering, as it could bridge the gap between prison and non-custodial sentences in the community. We need to find ways that are effective. One other issue that emerged from the report is the real need for an audit of available services; they need to be effectively measured.
At the end of the day, it is crucial that the judiciary is confident that, if it puts people into the community system, they will be effectively monitored and, if they breach their disposals, quickly brought back to court. The public must also have confidence in the system.
We move to the open debate. I call Maureen Macmillan, who has six minutes.
I have been busy scoring out part of my speech, as I thought that I would not have time to get it all in, but perhaps I will be able to.
Like Michael Matheson, I am one of the remnants of the Justice 1 Committee from the first session of the Parliament. Like him, I was very involved in the report, which took us a year to produce. We took a lot of evidence and made many visits to prisons and community projects in which offenders were being offered alternatives to custody. The report is one of the most interesting that I have worked on in the Parliament. What emerged from it was the idea that the offenders who would benefit from alternatives to custody are minor offenders. As Margaret Smith said, they are the 82 per cent of prisoners who serve sentences of less than six months.
We have to consider that a short prison sentence might be counterproductive. For example, the offender might lose their job, be introduced to drugs or make criminal connections as a result of the sentence, all of which make it more likely that they will reoffend. I believe that the aim of the criminal justice system should be to prevent reoffending and thereby cut crime. The victim of a crime will not be impressed if an offender comes out of prison after a couple of months and immediately repeats their crime. Their short time in prison means that no programmes on anger management or cognitive behaviour are possible. Prisoners on short-term sentences of between three and six months have the highest reoffending and return-to-prison rates of any group of prisoners.
It seems that short-term prison sentences do not prevent reoffending. In addition, they cost a great deal more than non-custodial alternatives. Evidence suggests that non-custodial alternatives are at least as successful, if not more successful, at preventing reoffending. However, the only evidence that we have is from the organisations—mostly voluntary organisations—that offer the alternative programmes. We need an objective evaluation of the success of community disposals. Pockets of information and evaluation are available, but the criteria are inconsistent and there is a lack of collation of the results from across the country.
The committee was made aware of the successful disposals that are run by the voluntary sector in particular parts of the country. However, no matter how successful they are, those disposals are not replicated throughout Scotland and, crucially, their year-on-year funding is not guaranteed. That can lead to anomalies, such as a sheriff who is aware of a successful programme in an adjoining sheriffdom but is unable to use it. That is postcode sentencing. Where a disposal is accessible, there is also concern that sentencers are unaware of it, or if they are aware of it, have no information on its success rate. That seems to be the case particularly with restriction of liberty orders, which, although they are available throughout Scotland, are used in some sheriffdoms but not in others.
We note that the publication of a directory of community disposals will be piloted in Lothian and Borders. Indeed, the Sheriffs Association welcomed such a step, because it wants that information. We hope that such a directory will soon cover all of Scotland and that it can be easily updated and incorporate evaluations of the programmes. We also hope that knowledge of the diversity and effectiveness of what is available will enable sheriffs to use community disposals more often and to use a succession of community disposals for repeat offenders. Perhaps that will mean that they will not try such disposals only once and then send the offender to jail, but will consider a hierarchy of community disposals, which might be better at keeping down reoffending rates.
As the committee was aware of the public's perception that community disposals are a soft option, it held a civic participation event to explore the issue. The event showed the public to be more thoughtful than popular wisdom would have us believe they are and demonstrated that they were willing to support community disposals if the outcomes were successful in preventing reoffending. Communities want to see evidence that the community disposal has happened and that the offender has been dealt with.
The Executive should try to build more public confidence in community disposals. A three-year community sentence with intensive input might be a far better option than three months in prison with little chance of access to rehabilitation programmes. Such a community sentence is a big commitment for an offender, who will perhaps come out of the experience more mature and grown-up and less likely to reoffend than if he went to prison for a few months.
Much of the overcrowding in our prisons is due to the increased number of people being remanded in custody. Many of them pose no danger to the public and are remanded purely because of their chaotic lifestyle or vulnerability. That is particularly the case for women. Indeed, on a visit to Glasgow sheriff court, we were told by a sheriff that women were remanded in custody for their own protection.
The committee considered that prison was not the place for remands who are not a public danger. In that respect, we welcome the creation of the time-out centre in Glasgow, which I hope will present an alternative to remand for women. We also believe that there must be more investment in bail supervision schemes and bail hostels, and more support for the vulnerable and chaotic in the community instead of simply putting them in prison. I note that the Executive has asked the sentencing commission to address as a priority the question of how we deal with remands.
Concern about the complexity of the funding streams used to deliver community disposals combines with concern over the patchiness of provision, particularly in rural areas. Those two points were made very forcibly when the committee took evidence in Inverness. For example, Peter Flanagan of Barnardo's Scotland pointed out that his organisation relied on seven different funding sources, while Highland Council said that it relied on eight. As a result, I ask the Executive to examine the funding of disposals to find out whether a more straightforward system could be introduced.
I feel a sense of déjà vu to be speaking about justice again. However, it is a subject that I enjoy.
The subject of alternatives to custody is a bit of a political hot potato. We all understand why people—particularly victims—feel an immediate sense of justice when an offender is caught, confesses or is tried and is imprisoned. If only things were so simple.
The criminal justice system should balance the need to be punitive with the need to rehabilitate. Initially, most people have a very simple idea of the matter. However, the civic participation event that Maureen Macmillan referred to—which the Solicitor General for Scotland also attended—revealed that when people are informed of the complexities of disposing of offenders they realise that the whole issue takes on shades of grey. I am glad that the Parliament is debating the issue and hope that we move on with it, because it has been on the go for four years.
Apart from the fact that the matter is not simple, I should point out that prison fails as far as short-term sentences are concerned. The majority of people who serve a six-month prison sentence reoffend and are back in prison six months to two years later.
It costs £14,000 to keep someone in prison for six months; however, it costs £1,325 for a community service sentence, £1,250 for probation and £4,860 for a restriction of liberty order. Alternatives to custody provide a better solution in certain circumstances as far as the public purse is concerned, not to mention the fact that custodial sentences fail.
As others have said, it is disgraceful that so many people are in prison on remand. Some 49 per cent of prison receptions are parties who are on remand—they are untried and therefore not convicted. If those people are convicted, many of them do not end up with a custodial sentence.
The committee found that, although a wide range of community penalties is available, the prison population continued to rise. It was clear that community disposals were at least as effective as short-term imprisonment. Other members might address the fact that we found the provision of alternatives to be patchy throughout Scotland and that we found funding for the voluntary sector in particular to be very bitty. Some people were seeking funding from five or six sources that came in at different times; they spent their time trying to build funding to continue worthwhile programmes. We suggested in our report that an index be compiled of alternative to custody and diversion from prosecution programmes that worked so that we did not have to keep reinventing the wheel.
I heard what the minister had to say about women in custody, which is a great tragedy. One can hardly consider that situation without examining the first preliminary report from the new chief inspector of prisons, in which he comments on Cornton Vale. I cannot remember how often we returned to Cornton Vale when I was the convener and a member of the Justice 1 Committee. The report says:
"The joint thematic review "Women Offenders—A Safer Way" had recommended that ‘the number of women offenders who are sent to prison could and should be reduced'. The 2001 inspection of Cornton Vale restated this and it was suggested then that ‘Restriction of Liberty Orders might be a useful alternative for some petty offenders, who might otherwise be sent to Cornton Vale—especially at a time when numbers were reaching record levels.'"
The situation does not seem to have changed. I heard what was said about the time-out centre. The problem is that it is Glasgow-centric and women offenders are scattered throughout the rest of Scotland. We have never resolved the issue that arises at Cornton Vale, which is that many of the women are there because they were soliciting, and they were soliciting because they were on drugs. They are sad, not bad. There are bad people there, but there are many sad people who keep coming through the revolving doors. This Administration has had four years to do something about that and I can see nothing that has changed except the promise of the time-out centre that we have only just received. It is a huge issue.
I take the member's point about the length of time that it has taken to address the time-out centre, but I do not want her to disregard the importance of the centre. The reason why sheriffs do not often recommend community disposals is because health facilities are not available, whereas they are available at Cornton Vale. Such facilities will be available at the time-out centre. I am sure that the centre will work—it needs to be rolled out, as I have argued all along. It is an important development that I hope the member recognises.
I am glad that the centre is going to happen, but I am concerned about the time that it has taken and the fact that it will be based in Glasgow. Women with such problems come from throughout Scotland. Behind just about every such woman is a family of children whose lives are also disrupted. We say in our report that the time-out centre should be made available to women across Scotland. Our report also states that there is a requirement for adequate residential places for women offenders Scotland-wide. That is a huge issue for women who are in prison for different reasons from men.
I repeat what I said to the minister about criminal justice social workers—not just social workers. In 2001, there were 612 criminal justice social workers and in 1999 there were 627. Perhaps the minister's researchers will tell us before the end of the debate how many criminal justice social workers there are today.
Why do we need alternatives to custody? As others have said, it is because we send too many people to prison. We have one of the highest incarceration rates in the European Union, with 115 prisoners for every 100,000 members of the general population. We are beaten only by England, Wales and Portugal. That compares with Northern Ireland, where there are 60 prisoners per 100,000, and Finland, where there are 52 prisoners per 100,000.
As we all know, it is expensive to keep people in prison—Christine Grahame has just given the figures, so I will not repeat them. The vast majority of custodial sentences are for short periods: about 82 per cent of custodial sentences are for six months or less. A sizeable proportion of the prison population has not been sentenced to imprisonment: in 2000, 42 per cent were remand prisoners and 23 per cent were fine defaulters, so 65 per cent of those received into prison had not been sentenced to imprisonment or had not been given a prison sentence for their original crime.
In his written evidence to the Justice 1 Committee, Bill Whyte from the University of Edinburgh highlighted that
"Around 38% of custodies in 2001 (average length 10 days) were for fine default for an average outstanding fine of £259".
The committee backed support for concrete measures and targets to reduce the number of fine defaulters who are being sent to prison, and I am pleased about the statement that Hugh Henry made on "smart options" in his press release today. Bill Whyte also gave evidence that approximately 13,000 people were held on remand. Most do not get a custodial sentence, so the alternative of bail supervision should be the preferred option for those offenders.
In his evidence to the justice committees on 4 November this year, Dr Andrew McLellan—to whose report Pauline McNeill and Margaret Smith have referred—highlighted one of his top priorities by saying that the Scottish Executive should "Stop overcrowding", and added:
"Of the statistics that lie behind overcrowding, the report draws particular attention to the rapid rise in the number of people who are on remand, which has been quite startling over the past two years and has made a considerable contribution to the rise in overcrowding."—[Official Report, Justice 1 Committee and Justice 2 Committee, 4 November 2003; c 95-96.]
Other members have referred to Cornton Vale, but I make no excuse for doing so as well. The rise in remand prisoners is most evident at HMP Cornton Vale: 50 per cent of those who go into the prison are on remand, and most do not end up with a custodial sentence. Many of the prison population of Cornton Vale are there for fine default. Their average sentence is nine days, and their average outstanding fine is £214.
I highlight one particular issue that I have highlighted before—I make no excuse for doing so again. It is a disgrace than many of those fine defaulters are in prison for non-possession of a television licence. Why is that so? It is because those women, some of whom are single mothers, are usually at home looking after their families when the knock on the door from the enforcer comes. I well remember being castigated in the district court by the lawyer because I imposed a sentence of 50p a month for the fine defaulter who came in front of me having been fined £80 for not possessing a television licence. I was told that 50p a month was uncollectable, so my answer was "Don't bother collecting it."
Five principal community sentencing options are available to the Scottish courts. The greater use of those powers would reduce prison populations, and I will highlight three of them. Supervised attendance orders are not used nearly enough: only 75 orders were made in 2002. The orders are specifically designed for fine default, and the fact that 38 per cent of offenders are imprisoned for fine default raises the question why they are not used more. I contacted a district court not far from the Parliament to be told that they used to use such orders much more, but they use them much less now. Why is that?
The community service order is another disposal that is available to the court but not used nearly enough. In 2000, only 4 per cent of those convicted were given community service orders, which were also introduced to keep people out of prison. Again, the question is why they are not used more.
We see alternatives to custody in use in other places. New South Wales uses home detention orders, which were introduced in 1996 and more than 79 per cent of them have been completed successfully. Home detention orders confine convicted offenders to their homes under special conditions that allow them to continue to work at home by using telephones and modern computers.
The third alternative to custody is the drug treatment and testing order, which is being trialled in various parts of Scotland, where it is proving effective in tackling drug-related crime. While we are on the subject of drugs, the attitude to cannabis in some police forces where a warning or fixed penalty is given to offenders who possess small amounts for personal use—I have said this before—should be the policy of all police forces in Scotland. Possession of small amounts of cannabis should be no reason for offenders ending up in prison.
We must have the public behind us. If we are to recommend the increased use of community disposals, it is imperative that the public, and victims in particular, are confident in their use. I believe that, once members of the public are aware of offenders' circumstances, they will begin to see that community disposals are more effective than imprisonment in many cases and they will accept that such disposals are the right way forward.
As someone who is about to be transported to Australia, I am acutely aware that the concept of alternatives to imprisonment is relative in the debate. I welcome the previous Justice 1 Committee's extensive debate and report on this important issue. I also welcome my colleague Patrick Harvie's attendance, because I was beginning to feel as if I was in solitary confinement.
They say that a measure of a civilized society is how it treats its offenders, which is the central issue in the debate. How does Scotland treat its offenders? We jail far too many of them. Scotland's prison population was at record numbers last year and again this year. Mike Pringle referred to the fact that Scotland jails 115 people in every 100,000, which is more than twice the figure for Sweden and nearly three times that for Finland. As well as jailing more people, we sentence them to longer sentences, even though there is no evidence that increasing the length of sentences is a deterrent to crime. Given that background, the debate is urgent—I share the urgency that Pauline McNeill and other members have expressed.
Some offenders must be imprisoned to protect the public, but 80 per cent of sentences are of less than six months and are handed out to people who are no threat to the public. That point is central to the issue that we are discussing, as are Scotland's record in rehabilitating offenders and the risk of reoffending in Scotland. Given that 58 per cent of those who are sent to jail reoffend within two years—that is far greater than the figure for their counterparts who are on probation—it is important that we consider alternatives to custody.
Before I come to the alternatives, I must mention the report that was delivered recently to the justice committees by the new chief inspector of prisons. That report makes it clear that Scotland's prisons include good regimes and bad ones. We have some very bad regimes—too many people are imprisoned in squalid conditions with woefully poor and ineffective rehabilitation programmes. The point is not only that prisons are overcrowded and provide insufficient opportunities for prisoners to spend their time valuably. People are not sent to prison to be punished there; the fact that they are sent to prison is the punishment. I hope that, in the debate, members will not forget that taking away someone's liberty is the greatest punishment that we can mete out to them. I certainly never underestimate that as a punishment.
I accept the point about the confidence of sentencers. I also accept that the confidence of the public acts as a background to the atmosphere around alternatives to incarceration. I recognise—as, I am sure, do many other members—that alternatives that oblige offenders to put something back into society are preferable to those that make them feel excluded and allow them to play no part in, or to opt out of, society.
I note the member's point that societies can be judged on the way in which they treat their offenders, but they should also be judged on the way in which they treat their victims. I whole-heartedly support the direction that the debate is taking, but does the member agree that we need the support of victims for our approach to restorative justice and alternatives to custody, to ensure that we balance the system between offenders and victims?
I accept entirely that the victims of crime have a role in the matter. However, we must look at the broader picture and realise that, sometimes, being a victim of a particular crime does not give a person the broadest vision of the situation in the country as a whole. Nonetheless, I accept the valid point about the victims' role in restorative justice and other such matters.
In my final minute, I will address rehabilitation and rates of reoffending, which are central to the debate. It is clear that the reoffending rate following rehabilitation is not as high as when people come out of prison. The salient issue that was raised in the report is the fact that those who are not imprisoned manage to hold down a job, their house and relationships, whereas those are the biggest problems that offenders who are coming out of jail face in their quest to be rehabilitated.
I welcome the Executive's announcement that fine defaulters will no longer be jailed. To answer Annabel Goldie's point, I am sure that that has nothing to do with Tommy Sheridan's experience. The report highlights the fact that most non-custodial options seem to be used as alternatives to fines, not—as they increasingly ought to be—as alternatives to short sentences. The sentencers have to reconsider that.
Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons last week told the justice committees that the number of people that a country sends to prison is a political choice: it is a political choice that we send to prison 115 out of 100,000 people, in contrast to what happens in Finland. Scotland and the Executive must act to bring down the prison population by addressing the causes of crime and the backgrounds of people who are in our prisons. The Executive must ensure that it gives adequate resources to rehabilitation and the reduction of reoffending rates.
Prison is the ultimate deterrent. In so far as it ensures the protection of the public—the number 1 priority for our criminal justice system—it works. It has already been stated that, in May 2002, the Scottish prison population was at an all-time high and exceeded the total available accommodation. That is worrying; however, the best way in which to stop overcrowding in prisons is to cut crime through having a greater police presence on our streets to deter and detect crime.
Nevertheless, within the prison population there is a significant number of people for whom an alternative to a custodial disposal is the most appropriate way in which to address their offending behaviour. Those people fall into two main categories: those who are held on remand and those who default on their fines. As Christine Grahame pointed out, remand prisoners account for a staggering 49 per cent of all receptions into Scottish prisons. All have been charged with a crime but have not been convicted. Many of the crimes are alcohol related—a fact that is starkly illustrated by the latest crime statistics from Lanarkshire. In Lanarkshire, 40 per cent of all violent crime, 78 per cent of assaults, 88 per cent of incidents of criminal damage and 40 per cent of recorded domestic crimes are alcohol related. In addition, 19 per cent of police call-outs—one in five—are to pubs and clubs.
Clearly, there is a need to address the problem through putting more resources into rehab centres to tackle alcohol abuse and provide an alternative to custodial remand. The rehab centres will have more success because referrals will be made at the time of arrest, when people have to face up to the full consequences of their drinking problem. Furthermore, the provision of alcohol rehab centres fits neatly with the Justice 1 Committee's recommendation that
"the Executive should ensure that there is sufficient investment in bail schemes to address the number of people on remand … where bail would be appropriate".
Equally, for the many people who are on remand, a possible alternative to custody is the use of restriction of liberty orders—more commonly referred to as tagging—to monitor the movement of those who are, for example, deemed likely to abscond while they await trial. However, in considering bail schemes, there is a crucial caveat. No one who represents a danger or a potential danger to the public should slip through the bail net. There must be rigid and stringent monitoring of those who are granted bail. That will ensure that cases such as the recent high-profile case involving George Everson—a paedophile who reoffended while he was on bail in June, after appearing before Arbroath sheriff court charged with the possession of thousands of pornographic photographs—are a thing of the past.
The second category of people who are suitable for alternative to custody disposals are fine defaulters. There are two types of fine defaulter—those who have the means to pay and can pay but wilfully choose not to pay, and those who genuinely cannot pay for one reason or another. For wilful defaulters, courts should make greater use of section 221 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, which provides that, in any case in which a court considers it expedient, the court may issue a warrant to order a fine to be recovered by civil diligence. In addition, section 24 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 provides that, where any fine has been imposed on an offender, the court may apply for the fine to be recovered by means of deductions from income support benefit.
Supervised attendance orders have an important part to play for those who genuinely cannot pay. A recent pilot scheme in Hamilton has proved successful in using such orders to help to address problems that led to fine defaults in the first place. I urge the minister to go further and make supervised attendance orders a disposal of first instance rather than, as at present, a disposal that can be imposed only when, for example, an 18-year-old is brought before a court, fined and then defaults on the fine. Such orders would be much more effective in curbing youth crime and would be in line with the Executive's commitment to early intervention.
In conclusion, the success of alternatives to custody will depend to a large extent on the willingness to comply of those on whom they are imposed. Any breaches must be cracked down on with custodial sentences in order to safeguard the public—that view is endorsed by Mark Hodgkinson of the Association of Directors of Social Work. Equally, if alternatives to custody are to be successful, it is vital that they are not a soft option and are not perceived as being so. They must be adequately monitored, enforced and evaluated.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate and congratulate the previous Justice 1 Committee on its report. I acknowledge the substantial amount of work that has been done by those who were involved at every stage in the process—some were involved throughout.
There is sometimes a false division in such debates. That division has not appeared today, but people can often be characterised as being tough or soft on alternatives to custody, or alternatives to custody are said to be good or bad. It is as if custody is always better or is never effective. If we are to progress, the key test seems to be that alternatives must be shown to be working, but the hard question relates to what the definition of "working" is. Nothing operates in a vacuum. Any action that is taken or any approach that is promoted has consequences. It is clear that there is no perfect answer, but it is also evident that doing nothing is not an option.
For me, what works will be determined by our ability to challenge offending behaviour through rehabilitation and to divert from and deter offending behaviour. It will be determined by our ability to deter potential offending, which is particularly important among young people for whom a pattern of offending behaviour has not yet been established.
Early intervention is needed. We must understand the power of the peer group in that context as well as we understand it in other contexts. We must get messages out to young people about what the consequences of offending behaviour are.
Finally—and perhaps most important—what works will be determined by the support and confidence that any action or disposal gives to the victims of crime and by the capacity of punishments to mark the seriousness of particular crimes.
Margaret Smith spoke about key players' being basically in agreement. The challenge is that significant key players—those who have experienced crime in our communities—are often not signed up to the approach that we are discussing. The challenge is to persuade people that alternatives to custody are a reasonable approach.
Alternatives to custody must be robust and thorough and they need to be monitored. Support for criminal justice social work programmes is rising from £44 million in 2001-02 to £88 million in 2005-06, but we need to ensure that we get value for money. We need to have a sense of authority from the programmes and a belief that they matter. People need to be assured that there is close scrutiny and follow-through and that we are not simply ticking a box.
Police in my constituency told me that they sent out 100 letters to parents of young people who were caught gathering in a large group and causing a bit of disturbance. That was an extremely low level of intervention, but not one parent responded to the police in any way. Some of them might have been too embarrassed to do so, but others might have thrown the letter in the bin. Knowing which proportion had which reaction would allow us to decide whether that action was effective.
Equally, if alternatives to custody are not visible and monitored and do not register on a community's radar, they can become discredited. That will affect offenders and potential offenders and, most seriously, it will undermine the faith of victims in the system. That impact must be understood. Worryingly, it might result in people taking the law into their own hands or, more likely, in a reduction in the reporting of offending and an increased feeling of powerlessness among those in our communities who already have little power.
If those who have bullied their local communities are seen not to suffer any consequences when their behaviour is reported, they become much more powerful. They do not have to do anything; they simply have to be. In my constituency, someone went around bragging to those who had complained about their behaviour that they were "untouchable". How much less powerful must someone who experiences such behaviour feel?
The issue is linked to the broader issues of bail, bail conditions and their effective enforcement, and a real understanding of how intimidation works in communities. For example, in relation to issues such as domestic abuse, we hear that we need to have more anger management courses and deal with people's drink problems. However, men with drink problems who abuse their partners often do not cause trouble in the pub, where they manage to control their anger, but only do so at home. Sometimes, their drink problems are used as an excuse for domestic abuse, not an explanation of it.
Annabel Goldie talked about effective policing. I understand the need for visible policing and argue for it in relation to my community. However, I would argue that effective policing is undermined every time nothing happens to someone who has been charged with a crime by a police officer and has been found guilty in court. That makes it less likely that people will report crimes again and makes the police less confident when they go back to the communities. We have to address that.
Work is being done in Glasgow in relation to community reparation orders. We have to be wary of fads and fashions. The policy has to be hard-headed. The orders provide an opportunity for damage to be repaired but there are limitations: offenders can take the graffiti off a wall but they cannot rebuild a school that they have burned down. That is an important point because fire-raising and vandalism now account for 23 per cent of all recorded crime and the number of such offences has risen by 15 per cent in the past four years. We need to examine who is committing those crimes and involve the voluntary sector more.
It is interesting to see those who advocate alternatives to custody picking away at those alternatives, on the ground that they are too restrictive. We can convince people that alternatives to custody are credible if they are robust. It is odd that electronic tagging, which is a community alternative to custody and, therefore, less harsh, and the extension of tagging to under-16s, so that it can be used to target individuals in a way that does not stigmatise a group of people as a youth curfew might, are criticised as being unacceptable because they are too tough. It is easy to find fault. Perhaps those who take the argument down that road need to be more honest. If they were, we would be able to have a debate about the balance of punishment, deterrence, the rights of victims and communities in the justice system and the right of our society to mark out particular crimes as serious and to have peace.
Alternatives to custody are a legitimate part of the system, but they must be robust.
I welcome what the minister said, which shows that the Executive is progressing. However, the feeling that friendly critics, such as me, have is that, although the Executive is progressing, it is doing so at the rate of a rather amateur marathon runner. We would like it to speed up, if not to the rate of a sprinter, then perhaps to that of an 800m runner or something similar. Furthermore, progress has to be more focused.
I am a veteran of the previous Justice 1 Committee and know how hard members worked on the report. The report is excellent, although, in my view, it has one major omission. Because of the time scale involved, we did not investigate the period before the stage when people either go into custody or experience alternatives to custody. The current antisocial behaviour debate has shown yet again the importance of assisting offenders' families at an early stage so as to help to prevent the young people from going in the wrong direction. It is also important to help schools to deal with young people better and to help voluntary organisations such as clubs to provide better facilities. That all relates to this subject, in my view.
I will re-emphasise some of the many good points that were made in the debate. We must have a gazetteer of successful projects, so that everyone knows where they are located and can try to copy them. We are still in the position of a medieval map maker: where there might be a project, we draw a picture of an elephant—and rather inaccurately. We really must know what is going on; if we did, we might do things a bit better.
We need continuous funding of good projects. A great many projects are provided through local government, Government agencies and the voluntary sector. Those projects must live from year to year, because they do not have enough money. Continuous funding is required for projects that are shown to be good.
We must also measure effectiveness in order to find out whether projects are good or not. I take Johann Lamont's point that we must show that alternatives to custody are robust and that they work. We must therefore examine them carefully. My suggestion is that, instead of having some sort of boss person for alternatives to custody, we should have an inspector of alternatives to custody, as we have an inspector of prisons. The whole area is so confused that having a boss person would be a bad thing, as it would encourage the entire voluntary sector to be the same, which would be wrong. It would be useful to have an inspector, who could identify good and bad projects and get us to copy the good ones.
Donald Gorrie has identified a real need. We must examine good practice and eliminate bad practice. Before building on the good practice, however, we clearly need first to know what is going on. I hope that Donald Gorrie and others will take the opportunity of the debate that we have started on creating a single agency to contribute such views, which would be influential in forming any conclusions that are arrived at in the debate.
I thank the minister for that and take on board that advice, or rebuke, in whatever spirit it was meant.
As other members have said, and as the committee's report says, we must persuade the sentencers of the effectiveness of alternatives to custody. We also need to persuade the media and the public of that. There must be a general perception that alternatives to custody work and that we are not all being wet liberals. I am allowed to be a wet liberal, but others are not—I try not to be one either.
Among the good points that were made in the debate are the ideas of weekend prisons and of collecting fines in a better way than we do at the moment. Those suggestions deserve support. Part of the investment that we want the Executive to make must be in bail hostels, so that people who are on bail, while having some sort of control over their lives and being kept out of jail, turn up when they are meant to. Other possibilities include residential accommodation for people with drug problems, which is very much cheaper than keeping them in jail. Restorative justice needs to be looked into. Although it is not a panacea, it can contribute a lot.
My final point is that overcrowding harms the progress of existing prisoners. Therefore, if we can keep people out of prisons, we will make two people much better for the price of one.
Given my enfeebled state, I will, with your indulgence, Presiding Officer, speak from a sedentary position. I hope that this state of affairs will not last too much longer.
There have been many worthy and sincere contributions this afternoon and I would be more than churlish were I not to congratulate the former Justice 1 Committee on its work. However, I believe that a number of the views that I have heard this afternoon are based on fairly radical misconceptions of the realities of the situation.
Can we start from the basic agreement that we are all unhappy that there are so many people in prison? As Colin Fox and Mike Pringle, among others, said, we in Scotland tend to jail more people per head of population than similar jurisdictions do. However, those members omitted to state that people in Scotland commit many more crimes and offences per thousand of the population than people in other jurisdictions do. That fact must also be considered.
Let us examine some of the issues that have been raised. First, it has been said that there are far too many people in prison for fine default. That is true, although I point out to Mike Pringle that in the most recent year for which figures are available only one person was in prison for not paying a fine for failure to purchase a television licence. That is wrong, but it is a minimal problem.
Mike Pringle also pointed out that 23 per cent of the people in jail in 2000 were fine defaulters. I suggest that the figure is much lower now. When I last asked, something like 26,000 means warrants were outstanding in the Strathclyde police area alone. That suggests that cases of fine default are being pursued with something less than alacrity. There is probably a difficulty there.
Why are the fines not being paid? In many instances, the alternatives to custody are derisory. This afternoon, we have heard about the Thursday morning walk-in, which effectively expunges a £200 fine. However, there is another aspect to the problem. Many of the people who are fined have absolutely no intention of paying. As I have said before and will say again, the easiest way of getting fines paid and of avoiding sending people to jail for non-payment is to deduct fines at source from salaries, wages or benefit. If we did that, the problem would not arise.
To an extent, I accept the point that Bill Aitken makes. However, does he accept that when we try to do that for people on low incomes—especially people on benefits—the deduction of fines comes very far down the list of possible deductions? In some instances, it is simply not possible to collect fines by such means.
Yes, but the minister must accept that, when fines are imposed by the courts, they are ordered to be paid by instalments. Courts will inquire into offenders' means to ensure that they have a basic subsistence. The problem that the minister identifies should not exist.
Much play has also been made of the high number of remand prisoners. Again, that is an issue of concern. However, why are those prisoners on remand? They are on remand because in many cases they have already breached bail and have continued to offend while on bail. About 50 per cent of the cases that are dealt with by the custody court at Glasgow sheriff court on a Monday relate to people who have been arrested on warrants after failing to appear for trial or an early court appearance. More and more people are remanded in custody because they do not turn up for their trial and continue to commit offences while they are on bail. That is the crux of the matter. Until the minister recognises that, we will be talking in a total vacuum.
A number of alternatives to custody exist. There is community service, which is of value—but only if sentencers have confidence that it is likely to be of value. I doubt whether 50 per cent of the community service that is imposed is carried out. I know that 75 per cent compliance is considered satisfactory and would not be reported as a breach. In those circumstances, is it surprising that sentencers have no confidence in community service?
I would like to refer to a number of speeches that members have made, but I do not have time to do so. However, Johann Lamont, who is living with the problem, encapsulated the arguments extremely well. The Executive should listen to people like her, who live on the wild side of life to some extent, rather than to academics and the social work fraternity—they have had their chance and have expressed their view. If we talk to people who operate in the real world, we may come up with some answers.
Dare I say it, but Bill Aitken is scarier when he is in a sedentary position than he is when standing up.
I welcome today's announcement on fine defaulters. It rarely if ever makes sense to lock up people for fine defaulting when their original offences did not warrant imprisonment. That is the commonsense approach. To some extent, the Tory position on that is the triumph of dogma over reason. However, the Executive's approach will work in practice only if there are adequate numbers of criminal justice social workers. Christine Grahame has already alluded to the shortage of criminal justice social workers; the evidence on the ground is that, in many cases, they are already struggling to deal with supervised attendance orders. That is an important point, on which the ministers should reflect.
It is instructive to reflect on the fact that the debate with which we are grappling is not peculiar to Scotland. Even in the United States, which is hardly the most liberal or lenient of sentencing nations, there is a dawning realisation that simply sending more and more people to prison, often for minor offences, is neither sustainable nor sensible. While I was scanning through some of the American literature, I was interested to note that the motto gaining currency in the United States is that it is not enough to be tough on crime—one also has to be smart on crime. That is the approach that we need to take in Scotland, although far be it from me to imply plagiarism on the part of the Scottish Executive.
Christine Grahame got it right when she said that we need more of a balance between punishment and rehabilitation. We are sending more and more people to prison. As Michael Matheson said, we have one of the highest levels of use of custody in Europe. On top of that, average prison sentences are getting longer. In spite of all that, however, reoffending rates are not improving. It does not take great genius to work out that we must be doing something wrong.
Many members have said—I agree with them—that prison is of course necessary in some cases and for some categories of offender, either because the offender presents a risk to society or because the interests of justice demand a prison sentence, whether a short-term or a long-term one. However, prison is not appropriate for everyone who currently finds themselves in prison, particularly if the sentence is short.
It is important that we get across the message that alternatives to custody are not soft options. Michael Matheson was absolutely right to make that point. Community disposals do not offer easy rides for offenders, but in the right circumstances they provide more appropriate and more effective sentences. As Colin Fox said, they also avoid the complete disintegration of an offender's life through family breakdown or loss of employment, which in turn can increase the likelihood of reoffending.
In that context, the previous Justice 1 Committee's report is excellent. As a number of members have said, it highlights the fact that community disposals are more cost-effective than prison and, according to the available evidence, better at tackling reoffending than prison is. However, Pauline McNeill was right to introduce the caveat that, because the people who end up in prison are the most complex and difficult offenders, it is perhaps not a huge leap of logic to say that reoffending rates among them will be higher.
The key question is how we make more use of alternatives to custody and, crucially, how we cut the number of prisoners on remand. The point has been made that, although half of prison receptions are prisoners on remand, something like a fifth of males and half of females on remand do not go on to receive custodial sentences. We have to reduce the number of prisoners on remand, although I agree with Johann Lamont that that must go hand in hand with more stringent bail conditions in certain circumstances. Bill Aitken is plain wrong to suggest that the majority of people on bail breach bail conditions; the statistics show that that is not true.
The report highlights the fact that the problem is not that the options do not exist, but that they are not available widely enough and are not used. That is the central point. Judicial discretion is the cornerstone of our justice system, but some of the most important recommendations are the ones about raising awareness of the alternatives and increasing confidence in them among the judiciary. I reiterate Christine Grahame's point about criminal justice social workers, which goes to the heart of the matter, and I commend the report.
I will try to do justice to what has been an interesting debate. In the weeks and months since becoming Minister for Justice, I have argued that we must tackle these issues head on. We must raise our game in trying to tackle some of the serious problems; we must prevent crime in the first place and deal effectively with the impact of crime on victims and communities; and we must address some of the problems in our justice system.
Pauline McNeill opened the debate extremely well by reminding us of some of the difficulties that we face. She referred to Andrew McLellan's reports and to the problems of short-term prison sentences. It is worth remembering that 83 per cent of all custodial sentences in 2001 were for less than six months. That is not enough time to deal with the problems that some people who end up in custody have. The programmes are not necessarily there. Crucially, people are not always supported when they go back into local communities and often reoffend very quickly. A total of 71 per cent of people who have been in custody reoffend within four years. The figures are slightly better for probation and community service, but we should recognise that there is a caveat in relation to those figures.
Prison may be the most appropriate place for the most serious offenders and violent offenders. We have many tasks: we must protect the innocent, protect the public, ensure that victims are supported and deal with issues in communities at the same time as dealing with offending behaviour.
Michael Matheson made a number of valid points, especially on the background to the committee's decision to hold an inquiry into the issue. He raised a particular concern about the possibility of weekend prisons. Far be it from me to suggest it again, but the debate on a single agency would give us the opportunity to consider a greater mixture of approaches to custodial and non-custodial options and to remove some of the arbitrary dividing lines between those options. If it is considered safe for someone to be out and about in the community during the week, there may be more constructive things for them to be doing at weekends. I am interested in considering some of the restrictions on liberty that will allow people to address their offending behaviour and to put something back into their community.
Annabel Goldie and Margaret Mitchell demonstrated between them that, although a week is a long time in politics, 12 hours is enough for the Tories either to change their policy from the one that they announced in their press release or, at least, to refine it. I am not sure that the Tory front-bench team has a clear view. They seemed to be at cross-purposes at various points. Annabel Goldie suggested that our use of legislation introduced by the Tories was somehow objectionable because we actually intended to use it for the purpose for which it was intended. I remind her, and I think that Margaret Mitchell mentioned this, that the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 allowed for the introduction of supervised attendance orders as a direct alternative for minor fine defaulters—those who were to pay fines of up to £500. We can introduce such measures by using existing legislation. Margaret Mitchell also asked whether we could use supervised attendance orders as first-instance orders. Yes, we can—we created that power in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and there are sometimes strong arguments for using it.
Annabel Goldie spoke about the number of outstanding fines, but I do not recognise the set of figures that she gave. We want to take every opportunity to collect fines that have been imposed. However, in some circumstances, imprisoning someone will cost the public purse more. I am sure that the Conservatives are not suggesting something that would not be a good use of public money, quite apart from being ineffective. As Hugh Henry said, we will make progress with pilot projects.
Various points have been made about restrictions of liberty—especially for those on bail—as an alternative to being remanded in custody. Johann Lamont made another powerful contribution on the safety of communities and ensuring that victims are not harassed and subjected to further intimidation. That is, of course, very important, which is why we have asked the sentencing commission to consider the whole issue of bail and remand.
Christine Grahame spoke about criminal justice social workers. I always like to be able to answer a question when asked. The figures are as follows: in 2000, there were 624 criminal social workers; in 2001, there were 612; and, in 2002, there were 642. At the moment, the vacancy rate among criminal justice social workers is not as bad as that in other forms of social work, although I would hesitate to suggest that we should start a bidding war among different parts of the social work service, which is vital in our local communities.
I will briefly mention a couple of other contributions. Margaret Smith talked about the importance of throughcare rehabilitation. Maureen Macmillan spoke about funding. The Scottish Executive funding that goes to local authorities and to the voluntary sector is for a three-year period. There are some instances in the youth justice agenda where various projects rely on bits of short-term funding, but it should be possible for local authorities and the voluntary sector to plan on the basis of funding for a three-year period. Maureen Macmillan also mentioned information for sentencers. The directory was piloted in Edinburgh, Lothian and the Borders during the summer. We have had some positive feedback on it and we will, of course, look at the matter in the future.
The debate has been helpful. I am sorry that I do not have time to develop Colin Fox's contribution about transportation to Australia, but I will just say that I hope that he comes back, unlike some of the deportees of the past.
This afternoon's debate has been interesting and informative and we have heard many well-informed contributions from all parts of the chamber. I join the many members who paid tribute to the previous Justice 1 Committee's work in producing the report. I was glad that so many members took the time to congratulate members of that committee on an impressive piece of work.
I am also glad to see that the Tory party—in the form of Bill Aitken—remains tied to the hang-'em-and-flog-'em solution. That might be the Tories' way of reducing prison numbers, but it is certainly not my way.
One of the committee's main recommendations, in relation to the appropriate use of short-term custodial sentences, was that community disposals should be actively promoted. If we accept that prison should do more than just punish and should be used proactively to rehabilitate offenders, and if we accept that short-term prison sentences offer limited opportunity for rehabilitation, we must accept the logic of the argument and recognise that custody is often the wrong option for people who are given short sentences. In light of that, it is particularly disappointing that the prison population in Scotland is historically high and that 80 per cent of all custodial sentences are for periods of less than six months.
Prisoners who serve short-term sentences of between three and six months have the highest rates of return to custody. More than half return to custody within six months to two years, as I believe Christine Grahame pointed out earlier. The Executive has confirmed that it is disappointed with the figures and has concluded that the best way forward to achieve a more effective and integrated system would be to establish
"a single agency to deliver both custodial and non-custodial sentences in Scotland".
I hope that the Executive's assumption is correct and that future sentencing policy will be more in line with the recommendations in the previous Justice 1 Committee's report.
The imprisonment of fine defaulters causes great concern. Many members—indeed, practically all who contributed to the debate—mentioned fine defaulters. I welcome the announcement about the two pilot projects, which will replace imprisonment for fine default by the mandatory use of supervised attendance orders in the areas that the projects cover. I agree with the minister that it is important that the use of such orders—at least in the pilot schemes—should be mandatory. If it is not, we might end up in the same position as we are in now, where the courts do not use the alternatives to custody that exist. When the pilot schemes end, we will be able to examine that.
However, the announcement raises some questions. In the statement on the Executive's website, there is no mention of any commitment to provide the resources that the pilot projects will require. I assume that resources will be made available on the ground and I hope that we receive clarification on that as soon as possible.
Many members talked about restorative justice. The committee endorsed the incorporation of
"restorative justice methods … into community disposal programmes, wherever appropriate."
Johann Lamont, Pauline McNeill and others mentioned victims and it is important that we take into account not just the situation of those who commit crimes, but the effect on victims. The phrase "wherever appropriate" in that context is important and relevant. If a crime has a significant impact on identifiable victims, the restorative measures that put victims' interests at the heart of the criminal justice system must be an option at all stages of the process. The Executive's plan to introduce community reparation is to be welcomed as far as it goes, but I am not sure that it meets the committee's recommendation.
Many members raised the question of the information that is available to sentencers. It seems, certainly to those on the outside, that sentencers do not understand or are not aware of the complete range of options for alternatives to custody. If we are to provide a range of alternative sentencing options, we have to provide those who impose sentences in our courts with up-to-date and accurate information about what is available. The report states:
"The Committee welcomes the imminent publication of a directory of community disposals as a pilot in Lothian and Borders. The Committee recommends that the directory should be made available nationally … The Committee also recommends that the directory should be electronic to ensure that it can be easily updated. It should contain information on the evaluation of local programmes as well as comprehensive information on the availability of programmes."
That issue was raised by several members, including Donald Gorrie. It is important that sentencers have to hand that list or directory—the word "gazetteer" was used—so that they can properly evaluate the possible alternatives to custody.
The Executive has agreed that the directory should be made available electronically and should include the kind of information that the committee requested. I welcome the Executive's response and I note that it is evaluating the pilot exercise that took place during the summer. I hope that the evaluation will not delay the introduction of the directory.
The committee believed that the sentencing information system that is in use in the High Court should be extended to sheriff courts, but the Executive remains to be convinced on that point. I agree with the Executive that a great deal of planning and work would have to go into extending the system, but that of itself should not be an obstacle to the introduction of any system that might improve the implementation of justice in Scotland. It has been said that the sentencing information system is not being used to best effect in the High Court and it might be necessary to consider the matter further before any decision to extend the system is taken.
One of the biggest hurdles that any plan to introduce alternatives to custody faces is the public's perception, about which Johann Lamont made a pertinent contribution. Any attempt to introduce community disposals on a wider scale without informing and educating the public could fail. It is essential that the public understand that any move towards community disposals is being taken to reduce reoffending and crime and to make people and communities safer. That is why I welcome the work carried out in November 2002 by the University of Strathclyde, which showed that the public are more supportive of community-based options, services and programmes for offenders than was previously thought. Once the public are better informed about how community disposals operate, they will begin to support them and understand how they are the better option in many cases. The public realise that simply locking people up fails to address reoffending.
The question of resources runs through much of what has been said in the debate and much of what is contained in the report. That question is critical and is not just based on a never-ending demand for more. The issue is whether the resources that have been allocated match the resources that are required. The report states:
"The majority of evidence received by the Committee demonstrated the requirement for more resources to be invested into community disposals in order to promote their greater use."
It is clear that the majority of the recommendations cannot be isolated from the overriding requirement for more resources to be invested. Hugh Henry stated today that the Executive is increasing the funding for criminal justice social work by £44 million over five years. In evidence to the joint justice committees on the budget, social work representatives said that that funding was insufficient to meet the ever-increasing demands that are being placed on the criminal justice social work system. The Executive must acknowledge that there are genuine concerns among organisations working in the area that the resources provided do not match the resources required. There is a danger that resource availability will be patchy across the country.
The report states:
"The Committee has established that Scotland has a wide range of community penalties available, but that the prison population continues to rise. It is also clear that community disposals are at least as effective as short term imprisonment."
I hope that the Parliament agrees with that, although I accept what Pauline McNeill said in her opening remarks about the fact that we are not necessarily comparing like with like. We have to be careful about taking things at face value. It is important that we understand that there may be a difference between those who are given non-custodial sentences and those who are imprisoned.
I hope that we can all agree that the report is a comprehensive study into alternatives to custody. I congratulate the members of the previous Justice 1 Committee on carrying out an important piece of work and ask the Executive to consider the recommendations in the report seriously. I ask the chamber to support the motion, which I am happy to second.