Hansard

I am pleased to speak in the debate. As a fresh-faced 24-year-old—unlike my current character—and newly qualified social worker in the early 1980s, I worked in community justice in Dumfries. I vividly remember working, while the ink was barely dry on my social work qualification, with a case load of clients on probation and aftercare. One of my clients, who was convicted of murder, was on a life licence. I discovered at first hand the social problems that offenders and victims face.

In part, that was my motivation for launching last session a member’s bill to create a victims commissioner. Members will know that such commissioners exist in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and across Europe. Alas, the Justice Committee ran out of time for my bill—Christine Grahame is not here to hear me say that. I believe that the time will come again for a victims commissioner bill, so members should watch this space. I do not think that the time will come before the election in May, but I will leave that for members to decide.

What do we mean by community justice? The Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review puts it like this:

“Community justice represents not a simple return to the rehabilitative ideal, but an approach to crime and punishment that is radically different from that of the traditional criminal justice process. Community justice initiatives ... emphasize attacking the causes of crime, rehabilitating individual offenders, and repairing the harm caused by crime rather than punishing offenders according to traditional retributive or deterrent concerns.”

As we have heard, Scotland’s imprisonment rate is the second highest among the nations of western Europe. In light of that, I welcome the cabinet secretary’s words of 1 September, which stressed the need to

“actively address the underlying causes of offending behaviour, using imprisonment far less frequently as a disposal”.

We have heard from members that the commission on women offenders, Audit Scotland and the Scottish Government’s consultation papers have outlined the current issues. They have been well rehearsed this afternoon. I promise not to mention the cluttered landscape again; I think that it has been mentioned seven times in the debate.

We know what the issues are—a lack of opportunity for strategic leadership and accountability within the community justice set-up, inconsistency of service provision and difficulties in measuring its impact. Funding is also clearly a problem.

Many campaign groups have expressed concerns that the detailed proposals in the bill show that community justice Scotland will lack the necessary accountability functions and robust strategic leadership model that are needed to make it a strong national body.

I would like to take a step back to look at the overall purpose of the bill. The work of third sector partners is crucial and I welcome the minister’s strong commitment to the third sector. For part of my life, I worked for the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, so I am a big fan of and enthusiast for the third sector’s work.

Even in its initial report, the commission on women offenders highlighted that the third sector was concerned about the short-term and fragmented nature of funding for interventions, which results in unnecessary competition between third sector providers. I will give an example from my patch in the Highlands and Islands. Michael Stewart—who is no relation—from criminal justice social work in the outer Hebrides agrees with the comment by the commission on women offenders. He said:

“The short-termism of funding makes it very difficult for third sector organisations to survive and not have to morph and change in order to chase pots of money.”—[Official Report, Justice Committee, 15 September 2015; c 35-6.]

That issue has persisted over a number of years and it needs to be addressed now, yet the bill does not set out adequate funding arrangements for the delivery of services and it does not say how the third sector will be engaged as part of the new arrangements.

In contrast, to give some fairness to my remarks, I note that Highland Council stated:

“For a ‘light-touch’ agency, with limited power and authority, CJS is significantly resourced.”

I understand that community justice Scotland’s role is intended to be to consider the wider social issues that impact on community justice and to produce the overall strategy to implement community justice. It is therefore strange that the bill’s definition of community justice—other members have referenced it—is restricted to those who have already committed an offence. COSLA stated:

“The definition ... in the Bill was not consulted on and appears to have come as a surprise to stakeholders and .. the statutory partners.”

In particular, it differs from the definition in the Scottish Government’s 2014 consultation. A new community justice system must recognise the role of services in preventing offending and, where possible, direct resources towards those services rather than waiting until people are already in the criminal justice system.

A broader lens is needed to address the causes of crime, which the cabinet secretary has committed to combating. In the time that I have remaining, I will highlight one such structural cause that the bill neglects—the link between homelessness and reoffending. Shelter Scotland and a range of other organisations have called for the bill to require community justice partnerships across the country to address housing need. If someone does not have a stable home, their risk of reoffending is greatly increased, yet we know that 50 per cent of people in prison lose their homes and 30 per cent of liberated prisoners do not have a home to go to—that is more than 6,000 people a year.

Providing housing and independent support to enable people to sustain tenancies is one of the key factors that will help ex-prisoners not to reoffend, which will benefit them and local communities. That might well be dealt with in community justice Scotland’s future strategy, but including the issue in the bill would ensure that there is a legislative grounding on issues that evidence has shown must be addressed for people to move away from crime.

Although I have some minor criticisms of the bill, in overall terms, I support its general principles.