Swift justice plan to cut reoffending rate

• Consultation document unveiled

• Fight to cut crime levels

AMERICAN-style swift justice schemes are to be considered as part of a plan to cut the rate of reoffending in Scotland.

Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson today said she wanted to look at a community justice system pioneered in the United States, where minor offenders can be forced to carry out community service within hours of being caught and sentenced.

The move comes as the Scottish Executive searches for ways of cutting Scotland’s growing prison population and reducing the high rates of reoffending.

Ms Jamieson today launched a consultation document, which includes proposals about making more use of alternatives to prison.

Last week, Ms Jamieson visited New York, where she heard how minor offenders could start community sentences within 24 hours of appearing in court. Vandals were sent back to clean up areas they had vandalised, and kerb-crawlers were sent to clean the streets.

Ms Jamieson said: "There was a very strong philosophy that these people have offended against communities, therefore the sentences ought to be about giving something back to that community."

It could involve environmental clean-ups, painting over graffiti or redecorating.

"Community service orders were always seen as an alternative to custody here, but in the States they are used at a much earlier stage in the process for quite low-level crimes.

"What interested me about their approach was that it was very speedy.

"I think there are ideas that it is certainly worth us exploring as part of this process."

She said reducing the long-term impact of crime on Scotland’s communities must begin with a fundamental review of how persistent offenders were dealt with.

Recent statistics show that around 60 per cent of offenders sent to jail were convicted of another offence within two years of their release from prison.

But only 42 per cent of offenders who received a community service order were reconvicted.

Ms Jamieson said improving public safety and reducing reoffending were two sides of the same coin.

She said: "We need to manage offenders better. We need to ensure the right sentences are available and deployed to tackle an offender’s behaviour. We need a system that can stop lives of crime in their tracks.

"For very serious crimes, that will of course mean serious time in prison. But for many persistent offenders that has to mean sharp, smart community sentences. Not just as alternatives to custody for that individual but because those sentences make the greatest contribution to the continuing safety of the communities offended against."

She said in 2002, 82 per cent of all custodial sentences were for six months or less.

"Such short spells in prison don’t address offending behaviour. In many cases, all those spells behind bars do is delay the inevitable - a return to offending and more crime." Ms Jamieson said community sentences were more available and widely-used than ever, but not as effective as they could be, and Scotland’s prisons were fuller than ever.

"We need a joined-up system more clearly focussed on improving public safety and dedicated to reducing reoffending.

"We are at a real watershed moment here in Scotland.

"There has been a passionate debate over recent weeks about the need for viable alternatives to prison.

"But too much of that debate has centred on the needs of the law breaking minority - and not enough on the views of the law-abiding majority.

"We need to rebalance that debate, gain a better insight into reoffending in Scotland, and identify and accept where problems lie. But we must also home in on how best to tackle reoffending, and what needs to change in order to do so."

The consultation paper, "Reduce, Rehabilitate, Reform: a consultation on reducing reoffending in Scotland" is published today and responses are invited by May 25.

Scotland has the fourth highest rate of imprisonment in Europe.

Figures last week revealed the prison population had reached an all-time high of 6523.

But Scotland also has one of the highest rates of reoffending.

Almost 30,000 of the 44,300 people convicted in 2002 had a previous conviction.

Community sentences are far cheaper than prison.

Last year, an average six-month prison place cost 15,000 and a six-month probation order cost 1059.