Chamber
Plenary, 28 Apr 2005
28 Apr 2005 · S2 · Plenary
Item of business
Criminal Justice Services
The Scottish Executive is to be congratulated on its in-depth examination of the criminal justice system and the resulting proposed reforms. No one can argue against the aim of creating a safer and more just society or of reducing reoffending. The task is on a huge scale and even more than reform of the criminal justice system is needed to make those changes, because the pattern of offending in our society correlates closely with offenders' family histories and social backgrounds. I agree with some of the points that previous speakers have made. Deprivation and a family history of offending drastically increase a person's chances of becoming an offender.
We need to make our society more socially just for children, to shield them not just from being victims of crime but from growing into criminals. I welcome the approach of closing the opportunity gap, which aims to prevent individuals or families from falling into poverty, to provide routes out of poverty for individuals or families and to sustain individuals or families in a lifestyle free from poverty.
I have seen how difficult it can be for the young to find their way in life, and I welcome schemes that provide them with support. However, there is concern about what happens when people have committed crimes and fallen into the system. We must work to tackle our national recidivism rates. I welcome the extra investment in treatment services, because we must help to treat drug addiction, for example, and provide support to prevent people from falling into patterns of offending. We need to examine our prisons closely and to look at society in general.
I support the prison visiting committees and praise their work in providing one of the few safeguards for prisoners' civil rights while they are in prison. That is not to detract from the work that is done by inspectors of prisons or from our efforts to visit prisons and examine their regimes; I look forward to next month's debate on the effectiveness of rehabilitation in prisons. However, our visits are organised and accompanied, sometimes not just by prison officers and governors but by representatives of the Scottish Prison Service, such as the chief executive. Although we can and do gather a great deal of information, a different perspective is gained by independent prison visitors. I look forward to their position being strengthened while their role is modernised.
Recently, publicity has surrounded the report of the chief inspector of prisons on Kilmarnock prison. The media have picked up the story as being about children in adult prisons. Society should be shocked not just by where young people are locked up, but by the fact that it is considered necessary to lock them up. There is a realisation that young people offend and that the problem must be dealt with. However, there is a distinct need for us to concentrate our efforts on supporting projects that aim to change behaviour at the earliest possible age. I refer to projects such as the Barnardo's bridge project in Dundee and Angus, one of whose slogans is
"Giving children back their future".
The project deals with young people who have been recognised as displaying inappropriate sexual behaviour, but who will be robbed of their future unless help is given to them. If we are to concentrate our thinking on young people such as those whom the bridge project helps, we must stop doling out blame and expecting that punishment alone will reduce reoffending.
What happens after prison? People—I am still concentrating mainly on young people—can lose everything after just a brief spell in prison, even for minor offences. If they have lost a tenancy and have no supportive family, everything in their house may be cleared out and thrown into a skip, including even school certificates and family photographs. That means that people come out of prison to nothing at all. How easy would any of us find it to start from scratch, probably only on benefits? If we do not spend money on supporting accommodation and job opportunities for ex-offenders, we will have to spend even more on secure accommodation and prisons. Perhaps if people were given more support and their lives were more just during their troubled childhoods, offending could be drastically reduced.
It is common for people to call for early intervention, and I welcome the minister's support for that approach in relation to addiction. Early intervention must underpin all our thinking about the justice system and other parts of government. We should not look at justice work in isolation. We need to include not just the usual parts of the system, such as criminal justice social workers and outside agencies, but social workers, youth workers and education and health workers in the drive for joint working. I welcome the attention that the Minister for Justice and the Deputy Minister for Justice are giving to the debate, but I underline the need for different ministers to work together to find and fund solutions that will halt the vicious circle of families perpetuating a culture in which offending continues through the generations.
I want to recommend some television viewing. I will not describe the programme, but I suggest that members watch "Supernanny", which is not about crime but about changing behaviour, with some spectacular results.
I will mention some of the legislative changes that are in train. We are strengthening the law to protect children from predatory sex offenders who seek to use the internet to facilitate their activities, and we are considering the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Bill, which will protect girls from the practice of genital mutilation. I welcome the frank discussions on such issues that have taken place in the Justice 1 Committee and the Equal Opportunities Committee. It is high time that we provided such protection for children and young people, who have often suffered in silence, and I am thankful that the Executive is facing up to and acting on those matters. As society changes and the use of modern technologies increases, our law must keep up to date with new and different ways of offending. The process is on-going and requires vigilance from the Executive. I support the criminal justice plan.
We need to make our society more socially just for children, to shield them not just from being victims of crime but from growing into criminals. I welcome the approach of closing the opportunity gap, which aims to prevent individuals or families from falling into poverty, to provide routes out of poverty for individuals or families and to sustain individuals or families in a lifestyle free from poverty.
I have seen how difficult it can be for the young to find their way in life, and I welcome schemes that provide them with support. However, there is concern about what happens when people have committed crimes and fallen into the system. We must work to tackle our national recidivism rates. I welcome the extra investment in treatment services, because we must help to treat drug addiction, for example, and provide support to prevent people from falling into patterns of offending. We need to examine our prisons closely and to look at society in general.
I support the prison visiting committees and praise their work in providing one of the few safeguards for prisoners' civil rights while they are in prison. That is not to detract from the work that is done by inspectors of prisons or from our efforts to visit prisons and examine their regimes; I look forward to next month's debate on the effectiveness of rehabilitation in prisons. However, our visits are organised and accompanied, sometimes not just by prison officers and governors but by representatives of the Scottish Prison Service, such as the chief executive. Although we can and do gather a great deal of information, a different perspective is gained by independent prison visitors. I look forward to their position being strengthened while their role is modernised.
Recently, publicity has surrounded the report of the chief inspector of prisons on Kilmarnock prison. The media have picked up the story as being about children in adult prisons. Society should be shocked not just by where young people are locked up, but by the fact that it is considered necessary to lock them up. There is a realisation that young people offend and that the problem must be dealt with. However, there is a distinct need for us to concentrate our efforts on supporting projects that aim to change behaviour at the earliest possible age. I refer to projects such as the Barnardo's bridge project in Dundee and Angus, one of whose slogans is
"Giving children back their future".
The project deals with young people who have been recognised as displaying inappropriate sexual behaviour, but who will be robbed of their future unless help is given to them. If we are to concentrate our thinking on young people such as those whom the bridge project helps, we must stop doling out blame and expecting that punishment alone will reduce reoffending.
What happens after prison? People—I am still concentrating mainly on young people—can lose everything after just a brief spell in prison, even for minor offences. If they have lost a tenancy and have no supportive family, everything in their house may be cleared out and thrown into a skip, including even school certificates and family photographs. That means that people come out of prison to nothing at all. How easy would any of us find it to start from scratch, probably only on benefits? If we do not spend money on supporting accommodation and job opportunities for ex-offenders, we will have to spend even more on secure accommodation and prisons. Perhaps if people were given more support and their lives were more just during their troubled childhoods, offending could be drastically reduced.
It is common for people to call for early intervention, and I welcome the minister's support for that approach in relation to addiction. Early intervention must underpin all our thinking about the justice system and other parts of government. We should not look at justice work in isolation. We need to include not just the usual parts of the system, such as criminal justice social workers and outside agencies, but social workers, youth workers and education and health workers in the drive for joint working. I welcome the attention that the Minister for Justice and the Deputy Minister for Justice are giving to the debate, but I underline the need for different ministers to work together to find and fund solutions that will halt the vicious circle of families perpetuating a culture in which offending continues through the generations.
I want to recommend some television viewing. I will not describe the programme, but I suggest that members watch "Supernanny", which is not about crime but about changing behaviour, with some spectacular results.
I will mention some of the legislative changes that are in train. We are strengthening the law to protect children from predatory sex offenders who seek to use the internet to facilitate their activities, and we are considering the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Bill, which will protect girls from the practice of genital mutilation. I welcome the frank discussions on such issues that have taken place in the Justice 1 Committee and the Equal Opportunities Committee. It is high time that we provided such protection for children and young people, who have often suffered in silence, and I am thankful that the Executive is facing up to and acting on those matters. As society changes and the use of modern technologies increases, our law must keep up to date with new and different ways of offending. The process is on-going and requires vigilance from the Executive. I support the criminal justice plan.
In the same item of business
The Deputy Presiding Officer (Murray Tosh):
Con
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-2736, in the name of Cathy Jamieson, on supporting safer, stronger communities and the reform of Scotland...
The Minister for Justice (Cathy Jamieson):
Lab
Thank you, Presiding Officer—I was just making sure that the Minister for Health and Community Care had taken all his worldly goods with him. I am pleased to...
Stewart Stevenson (Banff and Buchan) (SNP):
SNP
I welcome the Executive's proposal to bring an end to the automatic release of all sex offenders. However, will that measure apply to all sex offenders—in ot...
Cathy Jamieson:
Lab
Clearly, the focus in the first instance is on those people who have been convicted of a sexual offence. I was about to move on to address that issue more fu...
Miss Annabel Goldie (West of Scotland) (Con):
Con
I am comforted to hear that the minister has confidence in drug treatment and testing orders. Does she accept that, if we introduce those orders at district ...
Cathy Jamieson:
Lab
As I outlined, we are examining the whole summary justice system, so I will not make a commitment at this time. However, we believe that early intervention i...
Stewart Stevenson rose—
SNP
Cathy Jamieson:
Lab
I am sorry, but I have to move on.Local agencies are determined to make a stand against the mindless, abusive and disruptive behaviour that undermines the fa...
Mr Kenny MacAskill (Lothians) (SNP):
SNP
The Scottish National Party fully supports the motion and the minister's words. It is clear that there is a cultural malaise in Scotland that manifests itsel...
Miss Goldie:
Con
Mr MacAskill might have noted that the amendment is verbatim a motion on which my party led a debate in December, when no election was in sight.
Mr MacAskill:
SNP
The motion is an example of the sloganising that we have had from the Tories since the Parliament was formed without any sensible attempt to move forward.The...
Gordon Jackson (Glasgow Govan) (Lab):
Lab
Like me, would the member say that we should not imprison people who have defaulted on fine payments?
Mr MacAskill:
SNP
It is utterly ludicrous that we have such a large number of people, particularly women in places such as Cornton Vale, who are imprisoned—and, in some cases,...
Margaret Mitchell (Central Scotland) (Con):
Con
Will the member give way?
Mr MacAskill:
SNP
I have already taken two interventions.On automatic release, we welcomed the proposals with regard to sex offenders by the Executive and take cognisance of t...
Miss Annabel Goldie (West of Scotland) (Con):
Con
I support the rubric to the motion, "Supporting safer, stronger communities". There is not a scintilla of difference between the minister and me in relation ...
Cathy Jamieson:
Lab
I recognise that Annabel Goldie's party initiated that debate, but does she accept that the question is not one of debating a document on a one-off occasion?...
Miss Goldie:
Con
We are not going to agree on the mechanics of the process, but if the proposal is as radical as the Executive suggests, it would have been timely for the Exe...
Mrs Mary Mulligan (Linlithgow) (Lab):
Lab
When Labour came to power in 1997, there were 14,789 police officers in Scotland. Today, there are more than 16,000. It is clear to me that the Labour-led Ex...
Miss Goldie:
Con
That might be clear to the member but it is certainly not clear to the public. Those additional officers are not appearing in the communities where members o...
Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab):
Lab
Will the member take an intervention?
Miss Goldie:
Con
No. I have been generous.When a prison sentence is appropriate, the term that is imposed should be the term that is served. The Executive does not agree with...
Jeremy Purvis (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) (LD):
LD
The proposed Letwin-Monteith shadow budget—if we wish to call it that—in the election campaign points to £745 million-worth of savings, which are part of the...
Miss Goldie:
Con
The member is patently misrepresenting the situation, although I accept that he is doing so inadvertently. My party has pledged that in government at Westmin...
Jeremy Purvis:
LD
Only last week, Miss Goldie's colleague, the Conservative party's education spokesman, denied that the Conservatives wanted to cut £175 million from the educ...
The Deputy Presiding Officer:
Con
Before we move to the open debate, I inform members that there are a considerable number of back benchers whom I want to call, so I will keep members to a st...
Pauline McNeill (Glasgow Kelvin) (Lab):
Lab
I begin by putting on record my support for the Executive's approach to the reform of the criminal justice system. Prior to the Parliament, the subject did n...
Miss Goldie:
Con
Does the member agree that it is worrying that three out of four incidents of criminal activity are not reported? Does she accept that that reflects a huge n...
Pauline McNeill:
Lab
From time immemorial, academics have argued over what the real statistics are. If we wanted to examine what is not being reported, we would have to go back 5...
Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP):
SNP
As usual, there are many differing views in the chamber. One thing, though, is clear: the present system of prison is not working as it should do and it is n...