Activities and Current Concerns
The League maintains an interest in reforms, not only in the penal system itself but in the wider criminal justice system in Scotland. It is particularly interested in:-
- rehabilitation of offenders and the effectiveness of interventions
- improving prison regimes
- relationships between drug and alcohol abuse and crime
- treatment of young people in the criminal justice system
- early intervention and prevention
- reducing the unnecessary use of imprisonment
- links between poverty and crime
Early Release from Prison
On 21st June 2005 the Sentencing Commission for Scotland issued a consultation paper on the arrangements in Scotland governing Early Release from prison and Supervision of Prisoners on their release. This was one of the topics which the Scottish Executive had asked them to consider as one of their priorities when it was set up in November 2003. The HLS regards this as potentially a topic of enormous importance. The First Minister has made several statements about his wish to remove automatic early release for all short term prisoners and the Executive has already acted by amendments to the current Management of Offenders bill to remove it for short term sex offenders. If it is simply removed without any corresponding change in sentence length it will have an enormous and damaging impact on the prison population in Scotland. In New Zealand where automatic early release was removed the prison population has grown from levels below that of Scotland to levels well above.
The changes for sex offenders were welcomed by the major parties and the Deputy Justice Minister even agreed to consider whether the changes might be made retrospective so as to remove the entitlement to early release from offenders who are already serving their sentences. It is hard to credit such thinking. Even if the courts did not strike down retrospective changes as infringing the ECHR it is difficult to envisage action more likely to bring chaos and trouble to the prisons than telling existing prisoners that their release dates are cancelled.
At a recent SASO meeting in Glasgow the Conservative MSP Anabel Goldie showed her ignorance of the effect that such legal changes would have when she suggested that judges take the period of early release in to account when they determine the appropriate length of a prison sentence. Of course, were that the case then politicians could have their cake and eat it. They would tell the public that they were being tougher on offenders by removing early release but expect courts quietly in the background to compensate by reducing the overall length of sentences. Miss Goldie was told clearly and authoritatively that she was mistaken so it will be interesting to see if she presents her views differently now that her illusions should have been dispelled.
But the Judiciary are somewhat disingenuous too. Publicly they suggest that they have no interest in the actions of the Executive post sentence. If the Executive wishes to release prisoners at half sentence they say, then that is for the Executive and nothing to do with them. This implies that they would happily see all prisoners serve their entire sentence within the prison walls and a near doubling of the prison population levels. Privately many judges say that of course they are aware that only half of a short term sentence will be served and that this has to feature in their approach to the length of sentence. And the upward trend in sentence length supports the view that they have wittingly or unwittingly been compensating for early release.
So a great deal may depend on the recommendations made by the Sentencing Commission to the Scottish Executive. We do not yet have any clear idea what these may be as the consultation document simply seeks views on a number of open questions on early release and supervision and has yet to produce any proposals of its own - though it is due to report by the end of the year. While it is hard to believe that it can meet the Executive's timetable unless it already has some pretty well formed proposals we still regard it as important to put our views on record and emphasise the folly we see in any approach which lengthens periods of custody.
A copy of our submission can be viewed from the link below. (Since this takes the form of a response to the Commission's numbered questions a copy of those questions can also be viewed as a Word document - from the link that follows.) In essence we propose that sentences of imprisonment should cease and be replaced by sentences of custody (equating to the part of a sentence that had to be served in prison) and periods of supervision whose length would be fixed by the court.
HLS Response Covering letter with response Numbered Questions
Following the May 2004 elections to the Scottish Parliament the Labour Party in Scotland and the Lib Dems produced a partnership agreement as the programme for the Scottish Executive in its second parliamentary term. The full text of the partnership agreement can be found at A Partnership for a Better Scotland- Partnership Agreement.
This programme includes a number of matters of interest to the League and its members, notably the proposed review of the Children's Hearing System (see the NCH website for a report on their 'Kilbrandon Now' inquiry) and the introduction of youth courts, the review of sentencing by a judicially led sentencing commission and proposals for a single agency covering custodial and non custodial sentences. The single agency was the focus of our Autumn 2004 lecture series while the Spring 2005 lectures started with an International perspective when Clive Stafford Smith discussed the plight of British and other prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. You will find copies of most of the lectures that were given on the 2004 and 2005 lecture pages.
If you want to keep abreast of news on Criminal Justice issues in Scotland see the excellent site at www.cjscotland.org.uk