Hansard

This week, I had the good fortune to be briefed by Rob Strachan, the chief officer of Lothian and Borders community justice authority. It is important to state some facts about the general offender cohort in Edinburgh and Midlothian. There are 4,362 offenders. Some 27.9 per cent of offenders are reconvicted within one year. In the Scottish Borders, there are 802 offenders, with a one-year reconviction rate of 26.2 per cent. That is better than the Scottish average, but it gives members an idea of the task in hand.

Males are more likely than females to be reconvicted within two years. The peak age for reconviction for men is under 21. It is estimated that 90 to 95 offenders a month are released from prison and return to communities in Lothian and Borders with substance misuse problems. Breaking that life habit is complex and difficult.

On prolific and persistent offenders, research points to an average of 10 per cent of offenders being responsible for 50 per cent of all crime. It is the same people who commit all those offences. Past behaviour is the most reliable predictor of future behaviour, as demonstrated by the number of previous convictions and reconviction rates. It is estimated that 200 offenders cost the system in Lothian and Borders at least £12.2 million per year. When we consider that we are paying out £97 million a year to CJAs, we can see that a lot of money is going into the system, and it needs to be looked at again.

A different pattern emerges in relation to women offenders. Some 37 per cent of women offenders have attempted suicide. Two thirds of women in prison have a history of abuse. The rate of drug problems among women prisoners in Scotland has been found to be as high as 98 per cent. That group of people has a very different set of complex problems, all of which must be addressed to try to break the habit of reoffending.

Not being terribly au fait with CJAs, I was struck by the fact that the membership is made up of councillors. That seems to be a narrow membership, when CJAs need many skills. I therefore welcome what the cabinet secretary said about people from health services, drug addiction teams and housing services—I see that Jenny Marra is nodding.

The Justice Committee found when we examined purposeful activity in prisons and throughcare that one of the biggest issues for people coming out of prison is having a home to go to. If they do not have a home to go to and an address, they cannot get a general practitioner. As Alison McInnes and I found out when we were in Polmont, that means that, after all the work that is done in prison on breaking the drug and alcohol habits and on rehabilitation, most of these young men come out and have no GP, which means that their medical records stay where they are and the young men go back into the same cycle. I therefore welcome the refresh of the CJAs.

Rob Strachan was clear about the fact that provision is patchy. He knows that there are faults in the system and he is working to address them. For example, he said that he does not have the latest breakdown of the violent offenders profile. I have already raised with the cabinet secretary my view that the MAPPA approach, which has a role to play in the release of sex offenders, should have a role to play in the release of serious violent offenders.

Rob Strachan also said that he does not have the latest breakdown of the women offenders profile. One of the problems with women offenders and young offenders is that they are not in a local prison. People who are in Polmont and Cornton Vale have come from all over Scotland, and people who are released from prisons that are not in their locality face even bigger problems than other prisoners do.

One of the options that I favour—I do not think that it is in the consultation paper, but that is just me being difficult—is a marriage of options A and C. We need national oversight, national guidance and accountability, whether to a board or whatever, as to how the money is being spent. Good practice must also be shared—when something works in one area, we should let it go somewhere else, while never taking away local delivery.

I would like the CJAs to have a much broader membership with responsibility for delivery and to be accountable for what they do to a centralised board or whatever we want to call it. If we address all the other issues that we are raising—such as throughcare, the Scottish Prison Service following what happens to prisoners beyond the prison walls and the fact that, because the NHS now delivers healthcare in prisons, there should be continuity of care when a prisoner leaves—and if we have refreshed CJAs with a broader membership and with real accountability for the money that they spend and how effective they are, we might improve reoffending rates, which are very difficult to bring down, for the reasons that I have touched on.

That is not simple; everyone is individual and different categories face different problems. If we had a central organisation to look at strategies and make CJAs accountable, while CJAs said, “I know what works in this area and I know how we could do this,” we would have the best of both worlds.

I say to the cabinet secretary that I want something between options A and C—A plus C or A and C jammed together in some way, or maybe we could make it option D.

15:36