Chamber and committees

Persons proceeded against for an offence with a domestic aggravator recorded, 2005-06 to 2008-09¹:

Notes:

1. The recording of offence aggravators has improved with time therefore caution is needed when comparing changes over time. 2005-06 is the first year where it has been considered that the use and recording of domestic abuse aggravator codes from the Scottish Government Court Proceedings Database has been of sufficient coverage to be used.

2. Includes a small number of cases where police force unknown.

The increases at the Scotland level outlined in the table above, between 2005-06 and 2008-09, are likely to be related to a 27 per cent increase in the number of incidents of domestic abuse that were reported by the police to the procurator fiscal, from 14,900 in 2005-06 to 18,800 in 2008-09. This change may be associated with a revised protocol between the Police and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (in December 2008) for dealing with domestic abuse cases - http://www.copfs.gov.uk/Victims/Abuse.

It should, however, also be noted that statistics dealing with court proceedings and recorded crime are not directly comparable as a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime involving more than one victim and there is the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings. Also a crime may be recorded by the police in one year and court proceedings concluded in a subsequent year.

2003-04: £2,191,175

2004-05: £2,348,846

2005-06: £4,835,541

2006-07: £6,120,955

2007-08: £5,547,492

2008-09: £6,332,081

2009-10: £5,510,558

Total: £32,886,648

These figures include confiscation orders made by criminal courts (as sought by the National Casework Division), civil orders of court (following application on behalf of Scottish Ministers by the Civil Recovery Unit to recover assets unlawfully obtained) and cash seizures supervised by the Civil Recovery Unit.

After the Spencer Report the Cabinet Secretary for Justice asked HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (HMCIP) to review our progression and community reintegration processes. That inspection work is underway now and we look forward to HMCIP''s comments and recommendations. Since the Spencer Report we now have a senior manager, usually the Deputy Governor, in each prison with responsibility for overseeing the systems and signing off on decisions of progression and community access requests. multi disciplinary progression management groups meet in prisons regularly to assess the suitability of prisoners to progress. All agencies involved in the management of individual prisoners and the prisoner her/himself are invited to contribute to this process.

Every prisoner admitted to custody goes through an initial health screening by a nurse. Prisoners are all asked about historical and current alcohol misuse to ascertain immediate clinical need. Research indicates that there is a strong link between alcohol misuse and offending, particularly anti-social behaviour and violent crime. According to the 12 Prisoners'' Survey (2009), half (50%) of Scottish prisoners said they were drunk at the time of the offence.

Prisoners serving over 31 days in custody, identified with an alcohol misuse problem, are offered a comprehensive substance misuse assessment.

The following table shows the number of assessments completed for Alcohol misuse against referrals made to the Enhanced Addiction Casework Service (EACS) in 2009-10:

Note: *Open Estate refers to Castle Huntly and Noranside.

A further 87 prisoners were identified though EACS as having problematic alcohol issues.

Average Working Days Lost

Notes:

1. Pay Band A was amalgamated with Pay Band B.

2. Operations officers are mainly involved with security duties in prisons. Residential officers have a high degree of day-to-day contact with prisoners.

Every prisoner who is admitted to custody goes through an initial health screening by a nurse. Prisoners are all asked about historical and current substance misuse to ascertain immediate clinical need. Drug problems are highly prevalent with 56% of prisoners testing positive for illegal drugs in their system upon entry to Scotland''s prisons. According to the 12 Prisoners'' Survey (2009) just less than half reported being under the influence (45%) at the time of their offence.

Prisoners serving over 31 days in custody, identified with a substance misuse problem, are offered a comprehensive substance misuse assessment.

The following table shows the number of assessments completed against referrals made to the Enhanced Addiction Casework Service (EACS) in 2009-10:

Note: *Open Estate refers to Castle Huntly and Noranside.

It should be noted that data relating to assessments carried out for both drugs and alcohol only began being collated in April 2010.

Some recommendations would require changes to legislation to be implemented, and those will need to be addressed by the next government in the forthcoming parliamentary session. Others do not require legislative change and can be implemented through improvements to working practice. The Scottish Government will work with criminal justice partners to pursue these improvements over the course of 2011.

The budget provided to the Scottish Prison Service in each year was:

The table contains the most relevant year-on year figures for comparison purposes and details the levels of funding that are provided to Community Justice Authorities (CJAs) who, along with local authorities, are the principal delivery agents of criminal justice social work services in Scotland. CJAs were introduced in 2006-07 and the administration grant allocated in each financial year has not been included in the figures. As well as covering the statutory criminal justice social work services provided by local authorities, this funding also covers a range of other programmes and pilots which have varied by year and by CJA area. Other funding streams such as intensive support packages, ad hoc capital payments and a number of other centrally administered grants, although not included in these totals, could also be said to support criminal justice social work services.