SCOTLAND’S chief inspector of prisons has called for an end to jail sentences lasting less than a year. David Strang said a different approach is needed because shorter sentences do not cut crime.
“The evidence is very clear that if you want to reduce crime then you don’t send people to prison for a short time,” said Strang, a former chief constable of Lothian and Borders.
“With people who are released from a short sentence of less than 12 months, more than half of them are reconvicted within one year.
“I would have thought that one purpose of the criminal justice system is to prevent future crimes, to reduce reoffending, and that if you send someone to prison then the damage that does leads to them reoffending more than if you had given them an alternative.”
Scottish courts already try to avoid giving jail terms of less than three months and the Scottish Government is currently considering backing plans to increase this to a year.
Strang said yesterday that community-based alternatives to jail, such as payback orders and fines’ were far more effective and cheaper.
Speaking on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, he said a community payback order cost less than £10,000 a year as opposed to the £30-£40,000 cost of keeping an offender in jail for the same period. Strang added: “I think there is quite a punitive attitude in Scotland in that somehow people feel that unless someone is sent to prison then they haven’t really been dealt with properly for their crime.
“It’s really important to get the message over that that’s not the case.
We should only be imprisoning people who need to be imprisoned for the sake of either the seriousness of the offence that they’ve committed or, particularly, to protect the public from harm.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said there were plans to invest in electronic monitoring and com- munity sentences to reduce the “unacceptably high” jail population. He said: “We have consistently stated that the consultation responses on extending the presumption against short prison sentences would inform our decisions. There will, however, always be some crimes where a custodial sentence is absolutely justified.”
Strang’s intervention came after the news that the number of former offenders receiving a second conviction within a year has fallen to the lowest level for 18 years.
Figures released by the Scottish Government revealed that 28 per cent of offenders were reconvicted in 2014/15. Reconvictions have dropped by 19 per cent since 1997/98.
However, the figures also revealed that of the offenders released from short-term prison sentences of six months or less, more than half (57 per cent) were reconvicted within a year. In contrast, only around a third (32.7 per cent) of those given a community payback order were reconvicted.
“These figures show we are continuing to make good progress on tackling reoffending — a key goal of this government’s justice strategy,” said Justice Secretary Michael Matheson.
“The continued fall in reconvictions is down to hard work from partners across Scottish justice, working together to prevent offending and keep our communities safe.
“This is further evidence to back up our position that robust community sentences, particularly CPOs, are more effective at reducing reoffending than short custodial sentences. I want to see a Scotland where people are held to account for their offending behaviour, but are also given the opportunity to address the underlying causes of their offending behaviour and become contributing citizens in their communities.
“Our new model for community justice encourages that approach through its fundamental focus on preventing and reducing reoffending.”
However the Scottish Conservatives have condemned the proposals to end short prison sentences, claiming it could lead to hundreds of people convicted of crimes like common assault, handling offensive weapons or housebreaking “walking free”.
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