Crime and punishment
Vigorous - and high value - debate in Holyrood today on the topic of crime and punishment.
With regard to crime, there is common purpose. MSPs are against it.
With regard to punishment, there is substantial - and primarily honourable - division. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill is in fine form in the chamber, defending his criminal justice proposals.
As I write, he is arguing that courts should no longer tolerate any excuses founded on misuse of alchol.
Or, to quote Mr MacAskill, relying upon his 20 years experience as a court lawyer, it should no longer be acceptable at all to suggest that "getting bevvied" exculpates an individual.
The justice secretary's critics are currently arguing that this particular measure is unnecessary - as courts already ignore such pleas.
But no matter. To the main division over punishment. The minister wants a legal presumption that courts will no longer impose prison sentences of six months or shorter.
Presumption, note.
'Tough' sentences
This is not an absolute proscription of such sentences.
Mr MacAskill's argument is that such sentences do nothing to tackle reoffending. Indeed, they may enhance the prospect.
He wants "tough community sentences" instead.
Labour is against him. Broadly, they have mustered two arguments. One, that the provision for rehabilitation in the community is patchy at best - and likely to get worse with spending cuts.
Two, that many short sentences are for domestic abuse - and that women's groups fear the consequences of removing, in most cases, prison sentences as the disposal.
The Conservatives are also opposed, largely adopting the "prison works" mantra.
This position has been somewhat challenged by the views expressed today by Kenneth Clarke, the Tory justice secretary at Westminster.
He wants fewer short sentences.
Asked to explain this difference in approach, Baillie Bill Aitken boldly resorted to devolution. It was right and proper that the Scottish Tories adopted their own policy with regard to Scotland's distinct circumstances.
Knife crime
The Liberal Democrats have done a deal with Mr MacAskill.
Instead of a presumption against sentences of six months or shorter, the figure will be three months.
That deal will stick.
There's more. We have now moved on to the issue of knife crime. Labour wants mandatory minimum prison sentences for carrying a blade.
Ministers - and senior police officers - say this approach is wrong. It would be a catch-all and would do little to tackle the underlying knife culture.
I'm 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~37~RS~)
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Significant legislation is passed in Holyrood and the BBC News Headline (on this site) is:
"Scottish ministers are accused of failing to tackle domestic abuse, after their plans to end short jail terms are approved by MSPs."
Give me strength!
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The argument put forward by Scottish Labour with regard to Domestic Violence is a poorly thought out one. Of course prison is necessary in some cases where the protection of the individual/public is paramount. This is easily arguable and therefore the courts should have no problem in displacing this presumption in such cases.
A legal presumption is a good thing as it requires articulation of the reasons for a short prison sentence. It might not make a substantial difference due to the fact that Sheriffs undoubtedly don't send people to prison without thinking about it, but framing it in this way is at the very least a symbolic step in the right direction.
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Brian observes that MSPs are all agreed that they are opposed to crime.
Elsewhere today it is reported that Strathclyde Police identify at least 300 businesses in Glasgow which are run by or are fronts for criminals.
I wonder how many representatives of those businesses have attended fund raising dinners for a political party popular in that city?
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afternoon all,
"Broadly they have mustered two arguments"
both of which they summarily failed to tackle for decades while they were in charge.
"presumption"- doesn't mean there will be no short sentences it's up to the sheriffs and judges.
and finally
yet again we have labour and tory totally disregarding professional opinion and proven ideas.oh and yet again taking a totally different stance than there london leaders.
who do they think they are??
their inability to even produce a modicum of sensible opposition instead of opposition for opposition's sake is indeed pathetic and depressing!
Sid
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The idea that a crime that merits a custodial sentence can be addressed in any other way, is idiotic. If three months is deemed to be ineffective, then it should be increased to what is effective. The whole object of having a justice system is to protect the general public, and if a criminal is in prison, then that objective is being met. If the offender is not in prison then the public are not being protected. If the offender continues to reoffend, then permanent removal from society is the only effective answer. Remember that in the main, these repeat offenders are the lowest form of human life, not unfortunates that merit sympathy, they have had a chance to be part of normal society and rejected it, it is their choice, and if they choose to do otherwise, then they must take the consequences. It may be fashionable to apply normal rules to the scum of society and it may pay well for those who are involved in the drug councelling and rehabilitation industry but it is impractical and expensive and not in the interest of normal law abiding citizens.
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Short sentencing does not work in many cases and we would be better off spending the money it would have taken to lock up an individual in the kind of schemes that have proven to cut reoffending rates. It`s no surprise to see labour and the tories oppose the Scottish government on this one because even when the government has got it right opposing is all they seem to be capable of whilst not offering up anything else with substance. God help us if the unradicals which are labour get back into power in holyrood.
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#5 kaybraes
Scary, or a wind up. In either case...
First of all the justice system is not there to protect people. It is there to protect society. That is more than any number of individual people.
Secondly, punishment has to be proportionate, otherwise where is the deterant to escalating a crime?
thirdly a prison sentance, no matter how long, may not always work, and may even be worse for society than a non-custodial sentance as what is eventually released from prison may be someone more capable and willing to commit further crimes.
Fourth are we to give up on anyone who commits any sort of crime? From your tone, it seems so.
fifth noone is born "scum"
sixth no human is so inhuman that they don't deserve sympathy.
seventh is every crime committed by choice?
eighth if the justice system is just about punishment, why not just cut off bits of people or brand them, after all if someone has a brand on their forehead then "ordinary law-abiding citizens" will be able to avoid them
ninth community service is shown to produce fewer repeat offenders than short jail terms
and finally you seem to be advocating the execution of repeat petty offenders (as I am sure that a life jail sentance is more expensive than execution, and you want the cheapest option). so how many crimes are enough to get a six foot drop? would all crimes be included? or just crimes that you think are performed by scum? Would you execute someone for tax evasion?
John
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Brian, perhaps you could ask your legal-eagle colleagues why custodial sentences for "domestic abuse" are so short. I, for one, would be interested to know what the difference is between assaulting a member of your family and assaulting a stranger after a "few bevvies" on a Friday night. If anything, domestic violence which has gone beyond the civil remedies stage should be viewed as much more serious. It seems, therefore, that the problem is not with the Justice Secretary's current proposals but with the penalties for GBH/ABH in a domestic setting.
#7, John that was a brilliant piece of writing. Here in the USA, the general feeling is that punishment is about vengeance, rather than rehabilitation. There are some notable exceptions, of course, but it never ceases to amaze me what people can get locked up for and for how long. Yet what good does it do? I live in the 50th largest city in the USA and one of the largest cities in the south-east. We have culture, professional and amateur sports, all manner of recreational facilities and lower than average unemployment. Yet the local newspaper is full of crime committed in what is, geographically, quite a small city. Yet three hours' drive away another city has successfully used "Drug Courts" to channel drug and alcohol abusers into alternative programmes. Recidivism is lower than in other parts of the state yet the scheme has not been expanded.
Incidentally, John, a couple of fine universities just down the road from me did some research into the cost of the death penalty versus Life Without Parole (LWOP). Because of all the safeguards (necessarily) built into the system, as well as the cost of housing Death Row prisoners in separate units and maintaining the death chamber, they found that it is cheaper to sentence even a teenager to LWOP rather than death. Someone who spends 30 years sentenced to LWOP saves the state over a million dollars compared to someone sentenced to death.
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Crime and Punishment.
Annabelle Goldie:
"If there is something which is really beginning to unnerve the public, it is the SNP's unrelenting drive to create a soft- touch Scotland by emptying our prisons, extending home- detention curfews, and by setting prisoners free to commit more crime".
Kenneth Clarke:
''Clarke warned that simply "banging up more and more people for longer" is actually making some criminals worse without protecting the public.
"In our worst prisons, it produces tougher criminals," Clarke said. "Many a man has gone into prison without a drug problem and come out drug dependent. And petty prisoners can meet up with some new hardened criminal friends."
Oppose antything the Government at any cost ?
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#9 You and other uber nat ranters on here really are laughable. On the one hand the nationalists attack labour or the conservatives for not having devolved decision making, then when they do you attack them for that as well.
"Oppose antything the Government at any cost ?" - It's hilarious watching the pot call the kettle black.
As for the bill, I think it's quite a good idea, but I definitely have my reservations. Domestic abuse is a really serious one. The problem isn't that we shouldn't issue any short term sentences, it's that most things which get short term sentences shouldn't be getting them. Petty crime, tax evasion several dozen others. Locking these people up might be a great punishment for them, and it might "keep us safe" but the problem with short term offenders is that they get let out straight away and are almost always worse rather than rehabilitated.
We need to not tie judges hands with mandatory sentences, and we need to get judges capable of making sensible, individual decisions.
I don't if this bill will help achieve either of those things but if it does then I totally support it.
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evening, wansanshoo, exactly my point from #4 above, opposition for the sake of opposition, so bereft of new idea's , having the arrogance to refuse to listen to any experts that have the audacity not to toe the party line,so to speak, on this subject and alas many others we have tory & labour telling us that theirs is the only path to tread when in fact their path is well trodden and well proven to be a complete failure.
how many more times do they think we will blindly follow them when all we see around us is century's of their failures & broken promises time after time whilst they use their usual lame excuses.
how many days before labour announce yet another commission after being defeated in the Parliament?
if the Scottish government was to put forward a bill that shut down the Scottish Parliament and gave all the powers back to westminster the opposition would of course vote against it because that is there default position on everything that the government proposes.
they don't even think about it, no matter how stupid they look when their bosses in westminster say exactly the opposite to those in the Scottish Parliament.
remember now children the union =good , snp = bad and don't you forget it!
there we go rant over!
Sid
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The evidence shows that most s-term sentences don't work and many are just unecessary, and I would agree with the approach taken by KM. We either accept that their are some cases of petty low-level crime that do not require prison, or we continue to build yet more (private) jails. And relative to other EU countries we already have a high head count in the jail.
Agree also with the emphasis on removing the bevvie-plea in mitigation. We already have enough bevvie excuses stoating about the place causing mayhem. If only they would 'fight in an empty hoose'!
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Thank goodness we have a sensible majority in Parliament, and the unthinking populist policies of the Lab/Con alliance were defeated by the progressive SNP/LD/Green (aka known as "sensible").
The best put down of the authoritarian Lab/Cons came from Green MSP Patrick Harvie, who said: "There are some things legislation is not good for. Distinguishing between a frightened wee boy who made a mistake and knows he has and a genuine thug who poses a threat is something legislation can't do - the courts have to do that."
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#13 oldnat
I couldn’t agree more.
Welcome back !!
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#10 - ""Oppose antything the Government at any cost ?" - It's hilarious watching the pot call the kettle black."
You can, of course, cite an example where the SNP at Westminster support one thing while opposing it at Holyrood. You can cite an example, can't you? Or are you talking nonsense as usual. Can you even cite an example where the SNP simply opposed government policy because it was a Labour policy? Yeah, you're prejudice against the SNP is causing you to make eratic and nonsense assertions.
Now, that's hilarious to watch.
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10.
''You and other uber nat ranters on here really are laughable. On the one hand the nationalists attack labour or the conservatives for not having devolved decision making, then when they do you attack them for that as well''
Take the recent alcahol debate, Westminster Labour generally agreed with the SNP. Despite evidence from most leading authorities, Iain Gray opposed.
Take the recent prison debate, Westminster Conservatives generally agreed with the SNP. Despite evidence from most leading authorities, Annabelle Goldie opposed.
Goldie and Gray are simply marionettes,who, from time to time have to put up with being embarrassed by London. In both the alcahol & prison debates this is the case.
Over the next few days Annabelle Goldie will mutate into Kenneth Clarke, and in doing so, toe the party line.Sadly,she has no devolved voice.
It is understandable that you come to their aid in difficult times.
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Jings ! And what happened to all the other comments?
There were half a dozen waiting to be moderated when I last looked .
Its getting like Mr Cochranes " articles" in the Telegraph - not a dicky bird,like the Marie Celeste!
Are the journalists getting a little sensitive to their own readers comments?
Will that tell them anything?
Lessons will be learned and all that !??
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#17
maybe a change in policy, where comments that are moderated are not allocated a number, and so no indication of their existance is displayed.
John
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I was looking at an article over at the Caledonian Mercury, teh one about Salmond losing his edge. The editor in response to some of the comments used a word 'spang' this is indicative of the noise of hitting ones own head with a frying pan. It got me thinking about who else might be due a 'spanging' The thought occurs that Iain Gray and Annabel Goldie should consider the exercise as they try to justify their position regarding opposing this sensible and well thought out legislation 'spang'
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Perhaps the blog should be entitled:
Comment and punishment.
So, to paraphrase:
Vigorous - and high impact - debate in BBC blogland today on the topic of comments.
With regard to free comment, there is common purpose. The BBC are against it.
With regard to punishment, there is substantial division at central control. One opinion is that moderator just let posts sit in no mans land awaiting moderation till the blog closes but another is that anything suspect (breaks the rules which cover absolutely anything they find objectionable) simply disappears.
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I should point out that my comment (#18) is based on reports of comments waiting to be moderated, that subsequently disappeared (#17). I did not see these comments first hand.
John
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3 months or less? thats what they said about megrahi last august. maybe they really mean 10 months.
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2 hours worth lost in the ether John!
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