Meeting of the Parliament 18 September 2019
The result of the division is: For 82, Against 28, Abstentions 6.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.
That the Parliament, while acknowledging that more can always be done to ensure that public confidence in the justice system is high, notes that a recent survey conducted on behalf of the Scottish Sentencing Council found that nearly two thirds of the public considered that Scotland’s justice system was fair to all; further notes that automatic early release was introduced by the UK Government in 1993, and that the previous system of automatic early release for long-term prisoners was ended by the Scottish Parliament from 2016, and considers that future reforms to sentencing policy should be informed by evidence of what works to reduce reoffending and take appropriate account of Scotland’s current internationally high rate of imprisonment.