Davidson: Charities must help offenders
CHARITIES and community organisations should do more to rehabilitate offenders who may not trust the police or the state, Scottish Conservatives’ leader Ruth Davidson said.
She said many ex-offenders prefer services that have not been “branded by the state” because of the “privacy and the acceptance that involves”.
She was speaking as she visited Hamilton Academical’s New Douglas Park stadium to learn about the work the club does to provide activity to ex-offenders.
Ms Davidson’s visit was interrupted by Scottish Resistance activist Sean Clerkin, who sneaked in posing as a journalist and tore up a photocopy of the Tory manifesto on the park. A member of the ground staff mistook the Scottish Conservative head of press for an activist and escorted him from the park, before realising his mistake and confronting Mr Clerkin.
Ms Davidson said: “Hamilton Accies is a beacon in the area. As well as work with children with autism and with deaf people, it also works with prisoners and ex-offenders.
“We have a commitment in our manifesto to look at ways we can encourage the third and charitable sector to be involved in rehab, both before prisoners leave prison and after they are let out to make sure they are involved in meaningful activity and do not go back to a life of crime.
“We think there is work there that can be done by people outside of government, by community groups, by third sector organisations that can perhaps have some government grant aid to support the work that they do.”