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Reducing court time for low level offenders
05/03/2008
Alleged offenders who are too poor to be considered for a fine could be offered community-based reparation work as an alternative under an innovative new scheme unveiled today.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill today announced that from June this year, fiscal work order pilots will run in South Lanarkshire, West Lothian, West Dunbartonshire and Highland Council. The Scottish Government is to provide £200,000 per annum to fund the schemes.
Fiscal work orders will provide prosecutors with the additional option of offering an alleged offender a period of community-based reparative work as an alternative to prosecution for an accused who but for their lack of financial means might otherwise have received a fiscal fine.
Mr MacAskill described the scheme as a 'can't pay, should work' approach to dealing with low level offences such as grafitti, vandalism and minor shoplifting - helping to free up court time for more serious cases.
The pilots will allow for 400 fiscal work orders per year, 100 in each local authority participating. Across Scotland in 2005/06, there were 18,000 fiscal fines imposed.
Speaking before Sacro's annual conference today Mr MacAskill said:
"These work orders are designed to help create a new alternative to prosecution for accused who but for their lack of financial means might otherwise have received a fiscal fine. In my view if they can't pay, then they should work.
"That's why we want to see if this approach will help to remove a group of low level offenders from the courts and instead get them to give something back to their communities. I want to see them paying back by the sweat of their brow for the damage they have done.
"We want valuable court time to be focused on those matters which can only be dealt with by way of prosecution. It's important that fewer cases go to court needlessly, and that those cases which do go to court get there more quickly, are better prepared and progress more speedily.
"We want to save time and expense; avoid wasted effort; reduce the demands made on victims and witnesses, and get low level offenders to put something back into their communities."
Commenting on the pilots, The Solicitor General, Frank Mulholland QC said:
"I welcome the wider and more extensive range of direct measures available which will assist the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in our contribution to local justice as modern, effective and problem solving.
"The new fiscal work order pilots will build more flexibility into the system, allowing the prosecutor to deal with the conduct of the alleged offender proportionately and effectively. It will also ensure that the alleged offender gives something back to the community"
Speaking on the broader theme of the conference entitled "Community Sentences - Making Scotland Safer", Mr MacAskill said:
"Last month alone Scotland's prison population broke the 2007 record on no fewer than 25 occasions. We simply cannot continue down this path, because if we do, our prisons are going to burst.
"We need to give people the opportunity to make better choices about how they live their lives. They shouldn't be stuck in the revolving door of offending because they can't find the way out.
"Community penalties force those who have offended to face up to what they have done and give something back to their local community. They are demonstrably more effective for those who would otherwise be caught up in the revolving door syndrome - 75 per cent of those sent to prison for under 6 months are reconvicted within two years, compared with only 39 per cent of those given community service.
"We need to ensure that punishments handed down by the courts are actually making Scotland a safer place. I don't want to focus on whether something is "tough" or "soft". I want to focus on what works."
Work Orders are designed to create a new alternative to prosecution. They are being introduced as part of an overall approach by the Scottish Government to make alternatives to prosecution more widely available, more flexible and more robust. They are designed to result in the removal from courts of a further tranche of low level offenders and will in turn ensure that court time is focused on those matters which can only be dealt with by way of prosecution and those which are in dispute.
The introduction of Work Orders is designed to provide prosecutors with the additional option of offering an alleged offender a period of community-based reparative work as an alternative to prosecution. Completion of the order will discharge the right to prosecute the accused for the offence, in like manner to acceptance of a financial alternative to prosecution. This alternative will give the prosecutor the power to offer an alternative to prosecution where a court hearing does not appear to be necessary and a financial penalty would not be appropriate. In this respect it will contribute further to the goal that only cases genuinely requiring a court appearance should call in court. It will also allow the prosecutor to suggest a community based penalty where the nature of the alleged offence in question makes such a disposal more appropriate than a financial penalty.
Work Orders are not intended to legitimise or effectively decriminalise alleged criminal behaviour. Nor are they intended as an alternative to a decision by the procurator fiscal to take no proceedings at all.
The objectives of Work Orders are to:
- Provide an opportunity for persons generally accused of relatively minor offences and where it would otherwise not be in the public interest to prosecute, to be dealt with outwith the court system
- Extend the range of measures available to prosecutors in dealing with offences which do not require a court hearing
- Be of benefits to victims and communities through more speedy and appropriate resolution of cases
- Enable and require persons who are alleged to have engaged in minor criminal behaviour to undertake prescribed activities designed to make reparation for that behaviour and to reduce the likelihood of re-occurrence of the alleged offending behaviour
- Provide constructive community work activities or programmes for alleged offenders with the aim of encouraging personal and social responsibility and self respect
- Provide supervision to alleged offenders which is both firm and fair and follow-up compliance promptly
- Reduce the demands on the court system by removing cases which do not need to be taken to court from that process and thereby reducing the backlog of serious cases faced by courts and saving public resources
- Through speedy resolution to maintain the link between the commission of an alleged offence and the imposition of the penalty thereby acting as deterrent to offending in the first place and reoffending where an individual needs to be punished