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Justice 2 Committee, 28 Mar 2006

28 Mar 2006 · S2 · Justice 2 Committee

Item of business

Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Henry, Hugh Lab Paisley South Watch on SPTV

Colin Fox made a number of interesting points and identified several matters on which there is quite stark debate. He talked about cultural issues, but there are people who say that there are no cultural issues and that the problem should be described in a different way. However we describe it, it is serious.Colin Fox said that a change in sentencing policy would not affect people's behaviour, but I would argue that sentencing policy must have a part to play in resolving what is happening. I do not suggest for a minute that a more severe sentencing policy alone will be sufficient. That is why we have created a national violence reduction unit and why we had a major conference in Glasgow yesterday to facilitate engagement with the wider public and with organisations throughout Scotland on what all of us can do to change the culture—or whatever we want to call it.Colin Fox suggested that the sentence that can be imposed does not register when a young man goes out with a knife but, frankly, it should. It would be remiss of us to say that our approach to sentencing is that if a crime does not register as serious, we will not bother with it at all. Society needs to know that we are taking the issue seriously; the message might get through eventually. There is much more debate to be had about how we tackle knife crime. What can we do about behavioural and societal interests and issues? What can we do through the use of the legislation? What can we do to make the public feel not only that they are being protected but that they can influence what should be done?On the one hand, there will be those who argue that we should go much further and that carrying a knife should carry a mandatory sentence. There are those who suggest that there should be longer sentences. Whatever we do, we need to reflect on the interests of those whom we represent and on what we as legislators can do to make improvements so that Scotland is a much safer place. We also need to try and engage the wider society that has an interest in the issue, whether it be a victim or the family of a victim; the family of someone who foolishly carried a knife and is now having to pay the penalty; or the organisations that seek to help to rehabilitate offenders and turn them away from their violent actions. Each and every one of us has some degree of responsibility to contribute to that.My final point is about amendment 203, which would cause some problems. As it stands, the bill deals with the type of situation that Colin Fox describes, but I am not sure that it is right to make it mandatory. That could cause some confusion about appropriate sentences and I would not want something that is effective to be used inappropriately.

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Justice 2 Committee, 28 Mar 2006

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