Meeting of the Parliament 02 April 2015
Let me just expand my argument.
As a political principle, my party’s credentials could not be clearer on the issue. In 2007, it was heartening to find that we had acquired a political ally. In both its 2007 and 2011 Scottish election manifestos, the SNP committed to abolishing automatic early release of offenders.
In 2007, the SNP said:
“The SNP believes there should be an end to the automatic release of offenders. We support the recent legislation in this area and in government will drive forward this important area of reform.”
It echoed that in 2011, when it said:
“We will build on the work already done and involve the sentencing council in further action to address unconditional early automatic release.”
It seemed that our arguments had won over a new adherent to the principle of ending automatic early release. However, in politics principle is not enough; it needs to be married with policy to deliver what is pledged. It is disappointing that, eight years on, we have from an SNP Government a proposal not to abolish automatic early release but to introduce a partial and heavily qualified abolition.
According to SPICe, the bill as introduced would have applied in 2012-13 to 107 people convicted of sexual crimes and 24 people convicted of other crimes and offences. That total figure of 131 offenders would have represented less than 1 per cent of all people receiving a determinate custodial sentence. So, we have an abandonment of the principle and a divergence from those earlier manifesto commitments.
I make it clear that I do not disagree with the statement that introducing the abolition of automatic early release is not straightforward—it is not. As many members have said eloquently, there is a need to address prison capacity, whatever issues confront the prisoner—be they drug addiction, alcohol dependency, illiteracy or innumeracy—and to prepare the prisoner for release. However, those are issues of management that should neither intrude on nor detract from the kernel principle that we either have automatic early release or we do not.