Analysis: Rehabilitation is a key issue

Published on Monday 20 December 2010 18:00

THE increase in Scotland's prison population shows that we have a problem when it comes to the rehabilitation of offenders.

A lack of rehabilitation facilities in our prisons is a key part of the problem. With short-term offenders, there is less opportunity for rehabilitation, but there is still a need for better provision in communities to deal with this.

The Howard League's view is that we want to see fewer people in prison, as having more and more people locked up has not led to a safer society. That's why there needs to be more of a focus on rehabilitation in prisons to break the cycle of re-offending that these figures show we're living with.

This can be done through getting offenders to address their behaviour and to get them to see how their actions have affected other people.

It's about restorative justice - a much more effective way of reducing crime than simply locking people up.

We need to ensure that literacy and numeracy levels are improved among prisoners. That's another way of breaking the cycle of offending. Alcohol and drug abuse also need to be tackled in relation to crime and people committing crimes.

But we need to have properly funded packages in place to do all of these things, and with prisons affected by the budget reductions we're seeing that is a problem.

The government needs to be committed to dealing with these problems if we are to make real inroads into reducing Scotland's prison population and the huge amount this costs, as well as reducing crime levels.

Unless we see these areas addressed as a matter of urgency, we're likely to go on facing the same problems with crime.

• Craig Murray is part of the executive committee of the Howard League for Penal Reform in Scotland