IT’S RIGHT TO GIVE PEOPLE A CHANCE
COMMUNITY JUSTICE AIMS TO CUT REOFFENDING Scheme helps criminals to rebuild their lives
NATALIE Logan Maclean understands first-hand the impact of drugs on communities and families, how they can wreck lives and ruin futures.
The Director of Service for SISCO Recovery, she works in partnership with the Scottish Prison Service and runs addiction cafes in HMP Barlinnie and HMP Shotts.
Her personal experience of drug addiction gives her a unique insight.
She says: “I started to learn about addiction through my lived experience and started to apply for courses and put myself through university.”
Now Natalie is appearing in a campaign by Community Justice Scotland, the national agency responsible for reducing reoffending.
Second Chancers features powerful first-person testimonies and films from people touched by the justice system.
Sentences served in the community are more effective than sentences served in prison. Yet nearly two thirds of Scots don’t know what community justice is. This needs to change. The Second Chancers campaign aims to raise awareness of what community justice is and build confidence in it as an effective sentencing option that reduces offending, reduces the number of victims and improves lives.
Community justice aims to repair harm, address offending behaviour and support reintegration back into the community.
And underlying issues connected to the crime are addressed through appropriate support – for example, drug and alcohol counselling and mental health treatment.
Payback often comprises unpaid work which allows people to settle their debt to society and build better lives for themselves, their families and communities.
When Natalie was asked to do a recovery initiative in prison, she says her purpose in life became to advocate for prisoners.
“For such a long time, society has stigmatised people who are caught up in addiction. What they see is a label and they don’t see that it is someone’s child and one day that could be their child,” she says.
“One of the reasons we opened the cafe was so it could be a safe environment where people could sit with like-minded people and talk about trauma, mental health, addiction and family issues all under the one banner,” says Natalie.
“Scotland has a lot of work to do. Services need to stick together. By working together, we get the best outcomes and statistics – that is people in Scotland becoming better, becoming well, becoming recovered, dealing with their trauma and being counselled and supported.”
“Everybody deserves a second chance. No one wakes up and decides to be a criminal,” says Malky who also features in the campaign.
Malky fell into crime at the age of 16 after family life fell apart and he turned to drugs. But community service was able to help him where prison failed. He says: “Community service was harder than jail. Prison was quite easy to be honest, just having that structure. “I deserved to go to prison for what I did. But I lost everybody. And, that’s when I ended up suicidal. That’s when I turned my life
I’m a million miles away from that person and I don’t intend to go back
manages a project helping other people with drug and alcohol issues but says of his former life: “I’m a million miles away from that person and I’m quite happy with that – and I don’t intend to go back.” Karyn McCluskey, Chief Executive of Community Justice Scotland, said: “Smart Justice is about more than the justice system. “It’s about prevention and, regardless of what sector you work in, we all have a role to play and a responsibility to make Scotland the safest country in the world.”
FORMER OFFENDER MALKY