Strathclyde Police Prolific Offender Programme
The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S3M-3563, in the name of John Wilson, on the Strathclyde Police prolific offender programme. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament congratulates Strathclyde Police on the success of the Prolific Offender Programme, aimed specifically at drug and alcohol offenders, which has resulted in a 30% reduction in offending rates, particularly regarding shop lifting, housebreaking and prostitution; welcomes the inclusion of counselling, education and housing opportunities as part of the rehabilitation process under this pioneering initiative aimed at improving community safety, and notes that since 2007 over 194 people have been involved in the initiative while 95 people remain engaged in the programme.
I thank members who supported the motion, which congratulates Strathclyde Police and Glasgow addiction services on the successful operation of the prolific offender programme. Since the programme became operational on 27 November 2006, it has sought to engage prolific offenders in intensive support and treatment, through community-based outreach, to reduce criminality. The programme, which is funded by Glasgow community planning partnership, is a community safety initiative and brings together the work of Strathclyde Police and Glasgow addiction services.
In conjunction with existing services, and in recognition of worrying statistics on repeat offending, the programme was designed to provide an initial intervention to tackle addiction-related offending; integrate substance-misusing offenders into mainstream addiction services; improve quality of life; and promote training or employment opportunities and overall community safety. The project built on the success of similar initiatives in England, such as the tower project, which was implemented in Blackpool and Fylde in 2002 to tackle drug-related crime.
The programme has achieved real success in achieving its aims. An evaluation, which was published in July 2008, suggested that targets that were set at the outset are being met. There has been a 28.51 per cent reduction in offending rates, which equates to a reduction of approximately 270 crimes per year.
It is clear that the decrease in criminality among service users throughout greater Glasgow has wider community benefits, including a decrease in antisocial behaviour, improved community safety and savings in the cost of health, criminal justice and victims' services. For example, in 2006-07 the Scottish Prison Service estimated the average cost of a prisoner place in Scotland to be £31,000 per annum. Persistent offenders place a substantial burden on the prison service, in relation not only to capacity but to cost. However, for people who have been involved in the programme, time spent in custody has fallen from 30.2 days to 7.4 days per annum. The reduction is welcome, particularly during this period of economic uncertainty.
I have taken an active interest in the prolific offender programme, so I was pleased to meet project leaders to gain a more detailed understanding of the work that is being done and of what has been achieved since the project began. Most significant, perhaps, was the fact that two service users were in attendance, each of whom had their own experiences of the programme to share after struggling for some time with drug addictions and repeat offending. Both had found the programme extremely valuable in transforming their lives. Since engaging with the project, one of them had found employment, while the other was applying for a place on a training programme. By working with the project, both have achieved commendable goals relatively quickly and have re-established good relationships with their families, which were previously problematic. Both individuals praised the joint working approach of Glasgow addiction services and Strathclyde Police; they had found the tracking service fundamental in bringing about their initial engagement and subsequent re-engagement with the programme.
The 2008 evaluation process showed that those two service users are not alone in their opinion. Feedback from a spectrum of service users remained extremely encouraging. It was highlighted that involvement in the prolific offender programme had had significant results for service users' lives, providing stability to people with chaotic lives and ensuring retention in treatment. Service users also reported improvements in their physical and mental health, and improved access to training and employment opportunities. That feedback was reflected in the accounts of the individuals whom I had the pleasure of meeting, whose lives had been transformed after they engaged with the programme. In fact, both went so far as to say that the programme may have saved their lives.
Community-based projects like the prolific offender programme go a long way towards addressing the needs of those who are usually missed by traditional policies. Understanding and dealing with the underlying problems will undoubtedly have a significant impact not only on offending rates, but on the quality of life of those who are in the grip of substance abuse. Much can be taken from the continued success of the programme, but perhaps most important are the partnership and information-sharing aspects, which appear to have been fundamental throughout the project's implementation. Through engagement with the police, social workers and addiction services, offenders have had a reliable support network to work with, instead of against.
Following the success of the prolific offender programme throughout Glasgow, similar services are being initiated elsewhere. For example, in February 2009, the opportunity to reduce criminal activity project came into force throughout Peterhead and north-east Aberdeenshire. With a similar approach to the prolific offender programme, ORCA brings together Turning Point Scotland, the Aberdeenshire criminal justice addictions team and Grampian Police to provide support services in the local area for persistent offenders with drug or alcohol problems.
Given the success of the prolific offender programme and similar initiatives, we must ensure that funding continues to be made available for those projects to continue, so that they can improve the lives of those who are in the grip of substance addiction and stuck firmly in the perpetual circle of criminal activity. The work and commitment of Strathclyde Police and Glasgow addiction services, along with the social work teams, should be highlighted, as they develop and continue to deliver that valuable project to those who are in the most need of intervention in the city of Glasgow. Given that the benefits go far beyond those who are immediately involved in the programme and extend to the wider community, the development and implementation of similar initiatives throughout Scotland should be encouraged.
I thank again those members who allowed the debate to take place and those who have stayed to participate in it. I look forward to hearing the Minister for Community Safety's contribution.
I congratulate John Wilson on initiating a debate that is important, although it is not being held in Government time.
Everyone across Scotland is aware of the implications and the consequences of repeat offending for our communities. From talking to divisional police commanders in my area over many years, I know just what impact a small number of repeat offenders have in my local communities; that situation is probably the same throughout Scotland. However, if a small number of offenders are removed, even periodically, from the community, the level of reoffending is reduced drastically.
Removing repeat offenders has a beneficial consequence for the communities that suffer from their offending, but it does not take great imagination to understand that a significant reduction in crime also has resource implications for social work and the police, whose resources are not called upon in the same way. There is a distinct advantage in ensuring that repeat offending is both addressed and, where possible, reduced.
Now, that is easier said than done. I know that politicians of various persuasions over many years have called for action to reduce persistent offending, but there are also some simple truths associated with the problem. Yes, one of those truths is that we need a visible police presence in our communities and that a range of agencies must be involved, but another fundamental truth is that many of those who are engaged in persistent offending have, as John Wilson said, a chronic and severe drug or alcohol dependency. If we as a society do not address those addictions, we will not be in a position to reduce repeat offending. Although many of the people who are engaged in reoffending might not be at the more salubrious end of society, repeat offenders are often driven by the need to feed an addiction and resort to stealing to do so.
Clearly, the easy solution would be to ensure that more resources are deployed to tackle repeat offending. Like John Wilson, who eloquently outlined the contribution that a multiagency approach has made, I congratulate Strathclyde Police and Glasgow City Council's community planning partnership and social work department on their determined efforts, which have clearly made a difference. However, we need to be realistic in acknowledging that such initiatives cannot be left just to one area. Certainly, I would love to see such an initiative in my Paisley South constituency where many communities would benefit greatly from an initiative that successfully tackled repeat offending, but the question is how we do that. If we are honest, we must acknowledge that, successful though it has been, given the numbers involved, the prolific offender programme is not a cheap option. If we expect the minister to endorse and support that programme and if we expect action from the Parliament, we need to face up to the financial consequences of that. Given the scarcity of the resources that are available, it is not enough for me just to call for Strathclyde Police and my local council to roll out the initiative without saying that extra money will be made available.
Another point to consider is the need to adopt a spend-to-save approach. By spending money now, we could save money in the longer term. I do not think that it is good enough to say, "Well done, the project should be rolled out", if we then leave the police and local authorities to their own devices. Towards the end of his speech, John Wilson clearly accepted that funding is needed. I hope that the minister will recognise and endorse the success of the prolific offender programme, but he should also be clear that, if the programme is to be rolled out elsewhere in Scotland beyond its current boundaries, Government ministers will need to commit further resources to the police and to local authorities to make that happen.
I, too, congratulate John Wilson and thank him for bringing the matter before the Parliament this afternoon.
As Hugh Henry said, there can be no doubt that repeat offenders cause a great deal of hassle, inconvenience and downright annoyance to many people in our society. Frankly, that type of small-time, petty, repetitive crime can do much to affect the lifestyles of many people, especially in some of Scotland's poorer communities.
John Wilson will be interested to learn that, at the Justice Committee meeting that was held in Alloa on Tuesday, we received evidence of how this type of programme can work. The programme has had some measure of success, although I suggest that the jury is still out, at this stage, on how effective it might be in the longer term. From what we heard, it seems that there is genuine interest in seeing how the programme can be made to work more effectively.
All of that comes with an important caveat. The levels of intervention that we are talking about are intensive and, inevitably, expensive. In the course of the budget considerations that we will all have to face to a considerable extent in the months ahead, we must decide whether programmes of this sort would be affordable in the longer term. Perhaps that is a question for another day—or quite a number of days.
Nevertheless, we should look for ways in which we can reduce this type of offending. In my experience of dealing with such cases, an awful lot of the offences are drug related. If we can get people off drugs, they will not commit the petty thefts such as shoplifting and opening lockfast premises that they commit to feed their drug habit. At that stage, we are a little bit further forward. The same considerations apply in respect of offenders whose conduct is predicated on the abuse of alcohol.
As ever, if we have sufficient resources to work at something, we can get a level of co-operation from the subjects and, hopefully, some progress. However, I caution that, in the future, we will have to recognise that there are many competing priorities. I doubt that many people out there would find spending on such programmes acceptable if cutbacks were to be made in other, more sensitive, parts of social work budgets. The matter will need to be considered and will, I have no doubt, be argued out in due course.
It is worth while that John Wilson has brought the programme to the attention of the chamber. Prolific offenders pose a problem and are a real nuisance. If we can get some of them off their pattern of offending behaviour, not only will there be a significant saving of money; they will have the opportunity to contribute to society much more fully.
What I particularly like about the prolific offender programme is the two-pronged, carrot-and-stick, approach and the fact that the deal is very simple: "Sign up to this and we'll help you to fight your addiction; don't and we'll be watching you." It ticks all the boxes and satisfies both the liberals and the authoritarians among us.
Box number one on the checklist is the recognition that addicts of alcohol or drugs are victims, too; that they have an illness that is difficult to treat; and that enabling them to recover has far more benefits for our communities and the wellbeing of society than simply locking them up.
Box number two on the checklist is the recognition that we cannot allow people—regardless of the reasons or their addictions—to carry on breaking into our houses, stealing our cars and making our older people afraid to leave their homes. We cannot turn a blind eye, nor will we. We should make no apology for telling those who refuse to participate in the programme that they will be targeted. Targeting criminals is, after all, what the police are there for. If someone does not want to be targeted, they should not commit the crime. As I say to those who complain about speed cameras, "Tough. If you don't want to get done, there's a very simple solution and it's within your control."
The difference between the victims and the offenders is that the victims have no control over the actions of the perpetrator. There is almost nothing a victim can do if an addict is intent on committing a crime against them but, although I do not underestimate how incredibly difficult it is to beat an addiction, there is something the addict can do.
There is also something that we can do—and the success that the prolific offenders programme has achieved in its two years is a perfect example. We must be tough on those who refuse to participate in the programme—although I was delighted to read that, so far, only one person has refused. That demonstrates that addicts want to get better. For their sake and for the greater good, our focus must be on helping addicts to get well and to turn around their chaotic lives.
There are two main arguments for taking such an approach: the economic argument and the moral argument. It makes no economic sense to continue to jail people only to release them into their same old routines. Hugh Henry said that the programme is not a cheap option. He is right, but I will give the chamber an example of the costs and the potential savings to society.
When I first read the estimate that 73 participants in the programme committed, on average, 871 crimes a year, I divided 871 by 73. That was before I realised that the estimate was that they committed 871 crimes each. That is a shocking 17 crimes a week by every participant, which causes up to 17 police reports, insurance claims, shops losing goods and so on, not to mention the minimum of 17 victims and the costs that might arise as a result of, for example, those victims having to take days off work to recover. We can only imagine how much all that costs us.
There is also a moral argument. During a brief foray into teaching, I worked with 11-year-olds in one of Glasgow's most deprived areas. It was a class of 22. The teacher told me that not one of them did not have a link to drugs—some had been orphaned, some had parents who were in jail for dealing and some had not much older brothers and sisters who were addicted. We talked in class about their hopes and aspirations. Guess how many of them listed drug and alcohol addiction as one of their ambitions. Not one, of course. No child sets out to be an addict, but that is what some of them will end up becoming. They were innocent children—11-year-olds with a tough fight on their hands not to get involved in alcohol and drug abuse. I can hardly bear to think that they will now be 16 years old and that some of those fantastic kids will have fallen already.
We can all feel sympathy for those children, but when they turn into adults with addiction issues and a prolific career in crime, the sympathy often disappears. It is our duty to remember how they got there, to think about the examples they were set and the life chances they had when they were growing up in their communities. The prolific offender programme offers them compassion, understanding and a way forward.
Drug and alcohol addiction are two of the biggest scourges of our society. I am dismayed that there has been such a lack of robust assessment of the impacts of addiction strategies, but I am encouraged to know that discussions that have been instigated by the Scottish Government and the setting up of the delivery reform group are moving to address the situation. After all, if we do not know what works, how can we possibly plan for the future?
We know that the prolific offender programme works. I congratulate Strathclyde Police and Glasgow addiction services on that and look forward to hearing the minister's views on how this type of programme can benefit Scotland as a whole.
I congratulate John Wilson on bringing this issue to the chamber this afternoon. It would merit a full-scale debate in the chamber and I would like to draw members' attention to the fact that I am trying to set up a cross-party group on penal reform, which would enable matters such as this to be debated at greater length.
We need a better method—indeed any method—of social accounting. I congratulate Anne McLaughlin on her neat analysis in that regard. If we add the costs associated with a drug treatment order, social work supervision, attendance at an adult learning institution and so on, they still come to less than the £34,000 a year that it costs to put someone in prison—and if offenders are put back through the revolving door of petty crime followed by short prison sentences, the cumulative cost to the community and the public purse is gigantic.
Anne McLaughlin's back-of-a-cigarette-packet approach was neat, but I think that if we applied a proper system of social accounting to the real costs of crime we would be able to see how valuable the strategy to which John Wilson has introduced us today is. I do not think that, at the end of that bit of social accounting, anyone would be able to say anything other than that the programme must be supported to the full and that it merits being rolled out throughout the country.
I want to talk about two examples. One involves persistent high-tariff offenders; the other involves young people who could be at risk of offending. The young people who are possibly at risk of offending are those who have not attended school, who have already had brushes with the law and who have little or nothing in the way of educational qualifications. Project Scotland has been helping 2,900 of those young people so far—we have heard from them today in the Parliament—and it deserves the kind of support that John Wilson is asking for with regard to the Strathclyde initiative.
During the first session of Parliament, there was a panic subtraction of funds—which I am sure many of the people involved will live to regret—from the airborne initiative. The initiative was having roughly the same success rate—25 per cent—as the Strathclyde project, and it dealt with high-tariff offenders, who cause even more damage to the community. Such damage cannot be quantified—people are being beaten up, murdered and raped, and one cannot put a monetary value on that.
A system that gives such people confidence in themselves and returns them to society much less likely to offend again, and which reduces the likelihood of reoffending by 25 per cent, is—or was—worth every penny that was invested in it. I plead with the Government—and subsequent Governments—to develop a sophisticated and creative method of social accounting that will properly assess the kind of project that John Wilson has brought before us this evening.
I congratulate John Wilson on having brought this timely debate to the chamber. I visited the Strathclyde Police prolific offender programme just last week, and I was extremely impressed with what I heard. I met Allison Lawson, the contract manager; Andy Brown, the police sergeant and team leader; Keith Chalmers, the social care senior addiction worker; Neil Hunter, joint general manager for Glasgow addiction services; and Stevie Lydon, strategic co-ordinator.
Members have already set out many of the arguments that I was going to make. The Strathclyde project seeks to identify prolific offenders who have a serious drug problem, who spend thousands of pounds a week to fuel their habit, and who get that money by committing acquisitive crime.
The police, by and large, know who those people are and the programme seeks to identify them, reach out to them and offer them help to tackle their drug problem—but to put the offer in such a way as to make it most likely that it will be accepted. In other words, it is not a case of two polis arriving, chapping the door and saying, "Come to the drugs rehab programme".
The police are usually accompanied by a drugs treatment worker if the person is approached in their home, or perhaps in their cell or through other methods of referral. In each case, the message—as Anne McLaughlin said—is fairly clear: "There is help for you, and we want you to break your drug habit. Take this help—here's the fellow from the addiction service who will help you find recovery from your problem."
In each case, the police know that the prolific offender has a serious problem—probably a variety of serious problems that go beyond drug addiction—and probably many difficulties in their life such as prostitution, neglect, homelessness: the whole works. However, the offer is made and, as members have said in this debate, it is very often accepted.
What really impressed me about the problem was the huge commitment of the individuals. Such programmes often succeed or fail by the quality and commitment of the individuals who are involved. I felt that, with the commitment involved, the joint approach of the police and drugs team workers was the right one—and it has been successful. Of course, we need to evaluate these programmes to find out how successful they have been, but I believe that in a particular year 102 people went through this programme while only 19 went through a previous similar programme.
We are talking about a large number of people who have committed many, many crimes; indeed, one of them had, over a 10-year period, committed 222 crimes for which he had been convicted. Goodness knows how many crimes the individual had carried out for which he had not been convicted. As a result, when we are considering the costs of the programme—which, as members have pointed out, are not insubstantial—we must include in the equation the benefits that stem from crimes not being committed and from people not becoming victims. The programme is expensive but extremely worth while.
We have contacted other police forces, and it appears that similar approaches and projects have been introduced in all or almost all constabularies. Indeed, I recommended to the chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police that he consider the Strathclyde scheme. Police throughout Scotland are doing excellent work in reaching out to prolific offenders.
As always, I want to respond to points that have been made in the debate. Bill Aitken rightly pointed out that in deciding whether to mainstream the scheme—which, at the moment, is funded through the fairer Scotland fund—we should be clear that it stands up to evaluation. I am quite sure that its prospects in that respect are very good.
Hugh Henry raised a similar question, and both members are right to ask where the resources for the scheme come from. However, I should point out that I cannot readily be criticised on that score, because I do not readily call for resources from the taxpayer to fund multifarious schemes. Indeed, the reality is the opposite: just recently, we decided not to roll out mandatory drugs testing of all people who are arrested in Scotland. The approach was tried but, as only 223 individuals engaged with treatment services at a cost of £2.2 million, we decided that it did not represent value for money. As a result, we will save £1.8 million.
Similarly, we, unlike the rest of the parties in the Parliament, do not feel that investing £3 million in a new community court building is the right decision. I am not trying to be controversial or make a party political point; I am simply acknowledging that we have made difficult choices and that we will continue to take responsibility for making them.
That said, it seems to me that we succeed in turning people's lives around, in taking them away from a pattern of serious crime and in stopping them being a real menace to many hundreds of people in Scotland not by spending millions on new buildings but by ensuring that we harness the skills and qualities of individuals like those who work in the prolific offenders programme. After all, it is their work that has turned people's lives around.
Indeed, I had the opportunity to become familiar, on an anonymised basis, with a couple of the cases. One young lady had been involved in prostitution but, thanks to her family and the programme, she is out of that life, in college and in a flat. Her life has probably been saved as a result of the programme.
Robin Harper referred to the Airborne initiative, and I guess that, at the time, my view about what happened to it was similar to his. That was another approach in which youngsters were diverted from a life of crime and in which the qualities of individual people in Scotland were harnessed. It did not require money to be blown on new buildings that in any case would probably not be very green.
I should make a correction. I should have said earlier that some of the offenders who went through the Airborne programme had committed grievous bodily harm and violence that amounted to attempted murder and crimes of attempted rape—I do not think that there were any actual murderers or rapists on the programme.
I note Mr Harper's point.
I suggest that the programme has important lessons for other force areas. I commend the work that Strathclyde Police, the Glasgow addiction services and others are doing on it, and pay tribute to them. I hope that we will consider the matter again. Whether those of us who have spoken in the debate are liberals or authoritarians—to adopt the classification of human beings that Anne McLaughlin introduced—I hope that we can all, as pragmatists, recommend, support and applaud the Strathclyde Police prolific offenders programme.
Meeting closed at 17:45.