Criminal Justice
Scotland is undergoing the most radical reform of its criminal justice system for more than a generation. Devolution makes reform on this scale possible. The challenges we face in our communities and across our country make it necessary. Cathy Jamieson’s report, Supporting Safer, Stronger Communities: Scotland's Criminal Justice Plan, brings together for the first time all the elements of reform. It describes and explains the changing picture for communities, law enforcement agencies and the courts. It includes proposals for a new framework for offender management services which will demand significant change of both the Scottish Prison Service and local government. This ambitious and wide-ranging programme is united by a common purpose, to reduce re-offending. In this essay I shall endeavour to discuss how far it is useful, in understanding the development of criminal justice policy and practice in Scotland since devolution, to explain the changes in terms of a fundamental change in the philosophy underpinning the reforms.
Criminal law in the past concentrated on the offence and the penalty. The legal purpose of punishment differed depending on the nature and seriousness of the crime. The shift of modern criminal justice priorities in Scotland developed in the latter half of the 20th century. Feeley and Simon seen it as “a new strategic formation in the penal field”, which they detailed in the “New Penology” (1992).
The Scottish Executive publishes four available sources of statistical information regarding crime. These are police statistics, the Scottish Crime Survey, criminal proceedings in Scottish courts and costs, sentencing profiles and the Scottish criminal justice system. Police statistics show trends of crime including clear up rates, crime trends recorded over the years and the distribution of different classes of crimes and offences. By looking at this annual report we can see where issues of crime can be...
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