CONSULTATION QUESTIONS
Question 1: Should the presumption against short periods of imprisonment of
three months or less be extended?
X Yes
☐ No
You may wish to provide information to support your views, for example, what do you
consider to be the key factors for or against the proposal?
Comments
The current arrangements of automatic release at half sentence for short term
prison sentences mean that a person sentenced to three months will be released at
6 weeks.
It is therefore logical to extend the presumption beyond three months as it seems
dubious that the case where a prison sentence being essential for public protection
and offence seriousness is likely to be addressed by six or twelve weeks in
custody.
Question 2: If you agree that the presumption against short periods of
imprisonment should be extended, what do you think would be an appropriate
length?
☐ 6 months
☐ 9 months
X 12 months
Comments
Should it be based on the compromise of what might realistically be acceptable to
sentencers, or set as high as could be ideally desired? We believe the latter should
meet both requirements if resourced adequately.
Either requires the accompanying expectation of the significant resources required
to invest sufficiently in the volume of additional preventative and rehabilitative
services that can be effective
Caseload volumes for the Social Workers in Local Authority statutory settings
already make it impossible to allocate the necessary time on all individual cases (in
relationship based personalised supervision) to result in sufficient change-effect to
raise credibility levels with sentencers
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Question 3: Do you have any specific concerns in relation to a proposed
extension of the period covered by the presumption against short sentences?
Comments
Anecdotally, there have been incidents of police and procurators fiscal continuing to
hold on to minor charges and prosecutions against certain individuals before
presenting them at court all on the same occasion.
The supposed intention is to increase the likelihood that the particular offender will
receive a custodial sentence rather than a series of community based disposals,
and/or a more significant one than if the single offences were presented at separate
appearances.
This may be something to aware of in as an unintended consequence in extending
the presumption period.
Question 4: Do you think there are any specific circumstances to which a
sentencing judge should be required to have regard when considering the
imposition of a custodial sentence?
Comments
There is already guidance listing significant requirements for sentencers to
consider. Should there be any obligation to specific action as a result of taking
regard of such circumstances?
Social Workers also need to have time to write individualised and analytical reports
for each offender. The standardised template/pro forma-driven style that has been
centrally specified can militate against this when under time pressure. The debate
about Child Impact (of parental imprisonment) Statements has implied a limited
focus in Criminal Justice Social Work Reports, and time would clearly be a factor if
there were any reality in this.
Research into the use of court reports indicates that many sentencers find the
format style unengaging, and tend to skip straight to the final paragraph related to
disposal. They also cite the usefulness of well-written individualised reports, that
they note the names of the authors and tend to read theirs in more depth.
Under–resourcing community aspects of the criminal justice system at all levels,
whether obvious or more subtle as in this example, creates a cumulative pressure
towards the use of prison.
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Question 5: Do you think there are specific offences to which the presumption
should not apply (i.e. offences which could still attract a short custodial
sentence)?
Comments
No. The caveat to the presumption guidance (“unless the sentencer believes there
is no other appropriate alternative”) will continue to give the sentencer the option to
impose whatever short sentence they decide.
Question 6: Do you think that there are any circumstances in which a custodial
sentence should never be considered?
Comments
Yes.
When non-serious but repetitive petty offending is mainly harmful to the offender,
the Sentencer may be inclined to impose a custodial sentence as a means of
access to specific prison-based services, to interrupt substance abuse or access
services for mentally disordered behaviour.
No-one should ever be sentenced “for their own good” rather than because of the
nature of the crime and its impact on the community.
The necessary services MUST be made available and accessible in the community
if we are to reduce the number of people in Scottish prisons.
Question 7: Do you think that the Scottish Government should also consider
legislative mechanisms to direct the use of remand? If so, do you have any
views on what such a legislative mechanism might include?
Comments
A significant proportion of remands are due to failure to attend court, or breaches of
bail conditions, or lack of suitable accommodation
Legislation should require electronic monitoring or tracking and be assessed and
demonstrated impractical before remand in custody can be ordered.
Resources should be transferred to the community to ensure these services can be
assessed and set up the same day as requested, in order to make increased use
feasible. Savings from reduced remands should cover this once established.
Accommodation along the lines of bail hostels should also be available.
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Question 8: Do you have any additional comments on the use of short-term
imprisonment?
Comments
There should be more consideration of the reasons why a sentencer may come to
the conclusion that prison is the “only available appropriate disposal”.
If the seriousness of the offence and risk to the public are the main indicator, that
may be the case.
However, in many other cases it is because an offender continues to commit minor
offences and fails to comply with community-based sentences. This leads the
sentencer to conclude that community based sentences are inappropriate despite
the relatively minor nature of the offences.
In other cases the person continues to commit petty offences having been
sentenced to and ostensibly completed community based sentences, so these are
seen as ineffective and therefore inappropriate, leaving prison as “the only
alternative”.
To reduce imprisonment rates we have to make community based sentences more
effective. Sentencers need to be convinced by evidence of their effectiveness.
Criminal Justice Social Work staff need the time and space preserved to develop
professional therapeutic relationships with those they supervise, and to use their
full range of professional skills.
They must engage them, build trust, understand, motivate, incentivise and
encourage them; build their self-confidence and support the offender’s own
development of alternative responses to their own unique matrix of causal factors
for offending.
The increasingly standardised, tightly centrally-specified, procedural approach to
CJSW services, combined with the incremental data-input demands of the growing
culture of bureaucracy, are arguably decreasing the effectiveness of our Social
Worker’s supervision of offenders.
In part, it is servicing the very reporting and recording models that monitor
“effectiveness” that displaces Social Worker’s vital contact time with offenders
It costs between £30,000 and £40,000 a year to keep a person in prison. A social
worker can be very effective with a caseload of multiple offenders if it is capped at a
level commensurate with that effectiveness. However the volume of CJSW reports
and increased caseload sizes significantly incapacitates what should be the
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cheaper and more effective option.
We need to make community-based sentences more effective otherwise short
prison sentences will continue to be seen as the “only available appropriate
sentence” far too frequently by those on the bench.
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Consultation on Proposals to Strengthen the
Presumption against Short Periods of Imprisonment
RESPONDENT INFORMATION FORM
Please Note this form must be returned with your response to ensure
that we handle your response appropriately
1. Name/Organisation
Organisation Name
Scottish Association Of Social Workers ( SASW)( part of BASW)
Title Mr X Ms
Mrs
Miss
Dr
Please tick as appropriate
Surname
Parkinson
Forename
Tim
2. Postal Address
Princes House
5 Shandwick Place
Edinburgh
Postcode EH2 4RG
Phone 0131 221 9445
[email protected]
3. Permissions - I am responding as…
Individual
/
Group/Organisation
Please tick as appropriate
(a)
Do you agree to your
response being made
available to the public (in
Scottish Government library
and/or on the Scottish
Government web site)?
(c)
X
The name and address of your
organisation will be made
available to the public (in the
Scottish Government library
and/or on the Scottish
Government web site).
Please tick as appropriate
Yes
No
(b)
Where confidentiality is not
requested, we will make your
responses available to the
public on the following basis
Are you content for your
response to be made
available?
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Please tick ONE of the
following boxes
Please tick as appropriate
X Yes
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Yes, make my response,
name and address all
available
or
Yes, make my response
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or
Yes, make my response
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(d)
We will share your response internally with other Scottish Government
policy teams who may be addressing the issues you discuss. They may
wish to contact you again in the future, but we require your permission to do
so. Are you content for Scottish Government to contact you again in relation
to this consultation exercise?
Please tick as appropriate
X Yes
No
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