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Calling time on life of crime
06/07/2010
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill today visited an award-winning Glasgow project which is working to help offenders turn their backs on crime.
Low level offenders working for The Coach House Trust are being sent out to repay their dues to the community, working to transform derelict areas of Glasgow, whilst also learning new skills which can help get them back on the job ladder.
Local communities across Glasgow are now benefitting with numerous derelict sites being cleaned up and renovated for use by the community.
Work has ranged from transforming a once derelict garden in Knightswood into a thriving garden centre which now grows and sells organic vegetables to local communities, to regenerating eight gap sites near Kelvinbridge. These gaps sites, where buildings had been demolished, were becoming overgrown, infected with vermin and were having a negative effect on the local community. The Coach House Trust and its workforce of low level offenders have helped turn these sites into landscaped gardens and workshop spaces for their services users.
Through joinery workshops, kitchen duties and work to improve behavioural and communication skills, the Trust is equipping those involved in the project with new skills which can help them into employment and away from negative influences which can pull them back into a life of crime.
The Coach House Trust was recently awarded the accolade of Best Community Service project in Scotland by a panel of independent judges at the Community Service Awards.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said:
"Prison will always be the right place for serious and dangerous offenders but for low level offenders the statistics show us that short sentences do not work.
"Three-quarters of those given a prison sentence of six months or less go on to reoffend within two years of getting out. In comparison, three out of five offenders given tough community based sentences do not.
"We need to be smarter about the way in which we deal with low level offenders. We need to end the ridiculous situation where a low level offender gets free bed and board for three months at the taxpayers' expense when the evidence shows that getting them out paying back the community through tough manual labour works far better.
"People in Scotland are sick to the back teeth of seeing the same petty criminal out time and time again committing crime in their communities. What they want to see is these individuals being punished for their crimes and they want to ensure that they don't do it again.
"Projects like these help reduce crime - by rehabilitating offenders and giving them new skills to help them get back into work these low level offenders can turn their backs on crime.
"Getting them out doing some hard work in the community also gives them something positive to focus on rather than getting drawn back into mixing with their old destructive social groups or getting off their heads on drink and drugs.
"The Coach House Trust is a fantastic example of how community payback can help break the destructive cycle of reoffending by putting offenders to work to repay their dues to the community, whilst delivering benefits for local people. "