Report: Scotland Must Cut Prison Population
Panel Recommends Justice System Overhaul to Solve Recidivism, Overcrowding
EDINBURGH, Scotland — Scottish society must choose between a future of increasing crime, recidivism, and inmate overcrowding and one that incarcerates fewer offenders through targeted punishment and tailored rehabilitation, according to a government report.
| Traveling Panel Visits Other Jurisdictions The Commission looked beyond Scotland to see how other criminal justice systems function, visiting Finland, Ireland, and New York and Australia. Members also evaluated community justice initiatives in Glasgow and Liverpool. During the 1970s, Finland had one of the highest rates of incarceration in Europe. By the early 1990s, through legislative change and political support, incarceration declined to a rate comparable to that of other Scandinavian countries, which have some of the lowest rates in Europe. Finland is also considered a model in the operation of its corrections system, according to the report. Prison life, which is designed to facilitate re-entry and reduce recidivism through a normalized environment, emulates real life in the outside community where inmates have jobs, earn wages, do chores and vote. The Commission’s visit to Ireland, which has a prison population less than half the size of Scotland’s despite having approximately one million more citizens, highlighted several key differences in the criminal justice systems of the two jurisdictions. There is strong judicial support in Ireland for the use of alternatives to incarceration and community sanctions, while a legislative provision prohibits the imprisonment of juveniles under the age of 18 years old, according to the report. Probation services are focused on supervision and the offender’s maintenance of obligations to reduce the likelihood of violation and revocation. The Commission examined the use of short-term custodial sentences in Western Australia. The prison population increased by 43 percent during the 10 years following implementation, and the jurisdiction had the highest reconviction rate and highest prison spending in Australia, according to the report. The government implemented a package of reforms that expanded the use of alternatives to incarceration and community sanctions, which included the abolition of custodial sentences of 6 months or less. The Department of Justice reported a 13 percent decline in the rate of incarceration during the first 12 months after implementation, according to the report. |
“The evidence that we have reviewed leads us to the conclusion that to use imprisonment wisely is to target it where it can be most effective – in punishing serious crime and protecting the public,” writes Henry McLeish, commission chair and former First Minister of the Scottish Parliament.
The report contains 23 recommendations that focus on reducing the prison population. The criminal justice system should be more effective in achieving outcomes that benefit the offender and society and the government should expand the types and applicability of effective sanctions and alternatives to prosecution and incarceration, according to the report.
The prison population is projected to increase to 8,700 inmates by 2016 and the report recommends reducing the number of incarcerated offenders from the current level of approximately 8,000 inmates to 5,000 inmates.
The targeted use of imprisonment and alternatives to incarceration would make it possible to reverse the upward trend in the prison population, according to the report.
Custodial sentences should be reserved for the most serious and dangerous offenders, while atonement in the community should become the default strategy for dealing with less serious offenders.
“Imprisonment should be reserved for people whose offenses are so serious that no other form of punishment will do and for those who pose a threat of serious harm to the public,” McLeish says.
The report recommends the development of a single community supervision sentence, which provides a comprehensive range of conditions and measures that focus on the offender repaying the community.
New conditional sentences should be introduced as an intermediate stage of graduated sanctions between the imposition of community sentence and a custodial sentence, according to the report.
Intermediate sanctions could be employed in cases involving a suspended prison sentence and could be revoked if the offender fails to comply with certain conditions, such as electronic monitoring, community work and payment of fines.
The report also calls on the government to enact new legislation that would force judges to issue community sanctions in place of custodial sentences.
In the area of juvenile justice, the report recommends that the government explore the development of an intermediate forum and adjudication track for 16-year-old and 17-year-old offenders.
Unlike most European countries, young offenders in Scotland transition from the juvenile to the adult system when they are 16 years old.
Specialist Youth Hearings could offer a wider range of adjudication and sanction options than the Children’s Hearings System for offenders 16 years old and 17 years old and provide an intermediate stage before transition to the adult criminal justice system. Such offenders should be detained in secure youth facilities separate from adult offenders and younger juvenile offenders, according to the report.
The Commission proposed the establishment of two new independent criminal justice bodies: a national sentencing council and a national community justice council to oversee the proposed new community sentencing structure.
“A negative future is not inevitable and a positive one is not unattainable,” McLeish says. “One requires us to do nothing at all; the other will require us to think differently about what we want punishment to do.”