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INTRODUCTION
Our vision
Our vision is of safer, stronger communities where ordinary people can live their lives free from the fear of crime and where the rights of all members of the community are respected and upheld. Our purpose is to protect public safety by reducing offending and reoffending. Our route is more integrated, more consistent management of offenders in both community and custody, which takes into account the level of risk in each individual case.
Our shared aim
To reduce both the amount of reoffending and the amount of serious harm caused by those already known to the criminal justice system.
Our target Our current target is a 2% reduction in reconviction rates in all types of sentence by March 2008. 1 Over the next year, we will work with the new National Advisory Body to set new targets for 2008 onwards. These will measure success in achieving the range of outcomes for communities, offenders and the system set out below, and take account of the issues in the measurement of reoffending set out in Section 5. |
Our opportunity
Scotland is set on the most radical reform of its criminal justice system for more than a generation.
The Management of Offenders etc. (Scotland) Act 2005 establishes new Community Justice Authorities ( CJAs) which will bring all agencies together, to create a more coherent and flexible system of offender management, which builds services round the offender. The new National Advisory Body will shape long-term national strategy to achieve the reduction in reoffending to which we are all committed.
Through working together locally and nationally, Scotland has the opportunity to create a new model for managing offenders characterised by a well-focussed, problem-solving approach, and driven by a shared commitment to making practical improvements to the way we manage offenders and to challenging offending behaviour.
Why reoffending?
All offending matters. But the community has a specific right to expect public agencies to use their contact with known offenders to reduce the risk that they will offend again, particularly in those cases which raise the most serious concerns about public protection. At the moment, most offending is reoffending. Of those convicted of a crime or offence in 2002, two-thirds had at least one previous conviction.
This has an impact not only on individual victims and hard pressed communities but also on offenders and their families. This is why a central theme of the overall strategy and a key component of our drive to reduce reoffending is Closing the Opportunity Gap and tackling social exclusion and poverty. The strategy will therefore depend for much of its success on helping offenders and their families access the services they need, such as advice on financial services, benefits and sustainable support and also for these services to recognise offenders and their families as groups who should have equal access to their services.
What timescale?
This first-ever national strategy for the management of offenders focusses on the period to April 2008, to provide a common direction for agencies producing the first set of area plans, which will cover 2007-08. We will work with the new National Advisory Body over the coming year to produce an updated 3-year strategy.
Which individuals and whose task?
The national strategy covers all those in the criminal justice system including those coming into the adult system from the youth justice system. This includes those with whom agencies come into contact at earlier stages in the process than conviction, through activities such as diversion, alternatives to prosecution, court work, bail supervision or remand.
This strategy covers the offenders which pose the most serious risk to public safety through to those whose persistent lower-level offending causes distress to communities and absorbs an enormous amount of resources. Section 1 deal further with how agencies should deal with the conflicting pressures they face from different types of offender.
The strategy sets the direction for the work of the new Community Justice Authorities and for local authority Criminal Justice Social Work and the Scottish Prison Service, 2 the agencies with the core responsibility for managing offenders, working in statutory partnerships with the voluntary sector, Police, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Scottish Courts Service and Victim Support. The strategy also encourages links with other parts of the criminal justice sector such as sentencers, legal professionals such as local legal faculties or bar associations and other specialist bodies, such as the Risk Management Authority, the Accreditation Panel and the Parole Board.
But reducing reoffending cannot be a task for the criminal justice system alone. Bodies responsible for Housing, Health, Benefits, Education & Training and Employment in particular also have a central role to play in creating stronger, safer communities by providing offenders with access to their services. Children's and Families Services can also play an important role. Regeneration activity and investment in some circumstances can also present an opportunity to help reduce reoffending.
To enable this, as far as possible, policies intended to promote social justice should take account of the specific challenges presented by integrating offenders into the community.
Giving direction
For the first time we will have a common set of objectives to give a shared focus to all those working with offenders in any capacity.
All the organisations with a contribution to make to managing offenders will be expected to help achieve the following high-level outcomes.
Outcomes for communities Scotland is a safe place to live. But too many communities and individuals suffer the effects of crime. Communities need to feel safer as well as be safer. So we want to see: - Increased community safety and public protection through a consistent approach to managing offenders on community and custodial sentences
- Increased public confidence in the effectiveness of work with offenders
- Improved understanding of community disposals
- Improved understanding of the role of prisons
- Improved satisfaction for victims, sentencers and beneficiaries of work by offenders
- Appropriate care of victims, including appropriate and timely information
- Timely information and, where appropriate, involvement for the families of offenders
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Outcomes for offenders We know that certain factors will reduce the chance of an individual reoffending. We will expect agencies to work together to enhance services for offenders to achieve the following outcomes, as appropriate, prioritising the most critical factors in individual cases: - Sustained or improved physical and mental well-being
- The ability to access and sustain suitable accommodation
- Reduced or stabilised substance misuse
- Improved literacy skills
- Employability prospects increased
- Maintained or improved relationships with families, peers and community
- The ability to access and sustain community support, including financial advice and education
- The ability to live independently if they choose
- Improvements in the attitudes or behaviour which lead to offending and greater acceptance of responsibility in managing their own behaviour and understanding of the impact of their offending on victims and on their own families
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Outcomes in the system We need to be able to tell whether long-term changes are taking place in the way we manage offenders. Their delivery will require effective targeting of resources to where they can make most impact on public protection, through reducing the frequency and seriousness of reoffending. Better use of resources could be made through a reduction in reliance on short-term sentences, reducing the pressure on prisons. This in turn requires an appropriate range of disposals that enable the courts to impose a sentence that is both fair and conducive to the offender's rehabilitation, and the robust enforcement of the sentences of the court. Changes in offender management are therefore closely linked with and should provide support for reforms in other parts of the criminal justice system. We will therefore look for specific outcomes for offender management systems themselves: - Effective CJAs in place, promoting a consistent approach to offender management and systematic co-operation between offender management agencies and supported by a system of integrated case management, with input from custodial and community services
- Wider partnership of rehabilitative services in place, including addictions, housing, health, education, training and employment
- Standard approach to the methodology and use of tools which are widely accepted for risk assessment and management embedded into practice and any risk of serious offending identified and a management plan effectively communicated to all relevant agencies
- A range of high quality, evidence-based interventions based on the principles of effective practice, matched to the level of assessed risk and need, supported by better tracking of the impact of interventions on individuals, from which we build up a clearer understanding of what works
- A workforce with the appropriate skills mix, targeted appropriately
- Processes and systems which facilitate the sharing of information
- A robust framework for quality assurance, performance management and outcome measures for area plans
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Creating the change
To deliver such a wide range of service improvements will require the time, effort and commitment of leaders and practitioners in the field of offender management and in supporting public services, particularly housing, health, education and employment and training.
This strategy proposes that services should be developed under five inter-linking themes:
1. Setting priorities
2. Working together in new ways
3. Developing and supporting the workforce
4. Communication
5. Measuring, learning and acting
For each of these key themes the strategy identifies the tasks for:
1. The new National Advisory Body
2. The Scottish Executive
3. The new Community Justice Authorities
4. Local authorities
5. The Scottish Prison Service
6. Other partner bodies
and explains how various independent and specialist bodies, such as relevant inspectorates, (particularly SWIA, HMCIP, and HMCIC), the Joint Accreditation Panel and the Risk Management Authority can support these changes in the period up to April 2008.
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