Community Reparation - community payment
Scottish Government website article "Fast Track Justice" on 31/01/2011 (Click here)
The above article is a very positive initiative by the Scottish Government which has created a pilot of a fast track post-court procedure for low-level offenders to repay their crimes by involvement in a community payback work squad.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said:
"Punishment should be tough and justice should be immediate which is why we are piloting this new initiative. The aim is to get these low level offenders out doing manual work to improve communities within hours of being sentenced.
...
"The facts speak for themselves with three quarters of those sentenced to a short prison sentence of three months or less going on to reoffend within two years of getting out, but in direct comparison, three out of five given a tough community sentence do not."
Recent statistics show that 33,707 hours of snow clearing were undertaken by low level offenders during the recent adverse weather. On average there were 1314 offenders on community service out every single week across Scotland helping payback to their communities by clearing snow.
This is a very good initiative and shows that crime does not pay and that the scheme is already working. Hopefully the Justice Minister will keep us all regularly appraised of this pilot and the ideas that offenders could do in their communities as reparation and community payback. A vast improvement on a prison sentence as it costs £31,000 a year to keep a prisoner in jail, there is no doubt a cost reduction which could facilitate this scheme's harmonisation within communities. An initiative to watch ...
The above article is a very positive initiative by the Scottish Government which has created a pilot of a fast track post-court procedure for low-level offenders to repay their crimes by involvement in a community payback work squad.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said:
"Punishment should be tough and justice should be immediate which is why we are piloting this new initiative. The aim is to get these low level offenders out doing manual work to improve communities within hours of being sentenced.
...
"The facts speak for themselves with three quarters of those sentenced to a short prison sentence of three months or less going on to reoffend within two years of getting out, but in direct comparison, three out of five given a tough community sentence do not."
Recent statistics show that 33,707 hours of snow clearing were undertaken by low level offenders during the recent adverse weather. On average there were 1314 offenders on community service out every single week across Scotland helping payback to their communities by clearing snow.
This is a very good initiative and shows that crime does not pay and that the scheme is already working. Hopefully the Justice Minister will keep us all regularly appraised of this pilot and the ideas that offenders could do in their communities as reparation and community payback. A vast improvement on a prison sentence as it costs £31,000 a year to keep a prisoner in jail, there is no doubt a cost reduction which could facilitate this scheme's harmonisation within communities. An initiative to watch ...
posted by Lesley McDade at 8:18 pm
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