SNP could write off 51YEARS worth of community payback
THOUSANDS of thugs, sex predators and thieves could dodge justice under proposals to ease a backlog of community sentences.
The Scottish Government is considering writing off hundreds of thousands of hours of community service that have not been completed due to the pandemic.
Community Payback Orders (CPOs) were introduced as an alternative to custody and have been increasingly used as punishment for crimes judged less serious.
However, they have been criticised as a ‘soft-touch’ measure.
Councils have struggled to administer the growing numbers of CPOs – a problem made worse by Covid.
Scottish Tory justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: ‘The SNP Government must stop using Covid-19 as an excuse for soft-touch justice.
‘This plan is a complete betrayal of victims and leaves dangerous criminals laughing at the law.
‘It does nothing for the deterrence of crime and makes a mockery of the hard work police do in bringing these criminals to book. The SNP should be finding ways to make
Scotland’s justice system work through the pandemic, not making life easier for criminals.’
Social Work Scotland revealed last month that offenders had not completed more than 700,000 hours of work due to Covid restrictions.
The organisation said social workers had become ‘overwhelmed’ by a backlog of CPO hours and demanded that 450,000 hours of unpaid work – equivalent to 51 years – were written off, either completely or in favour of alternative penalties, such as a restriction of liberty order.
CPOs are the responsibility of council social work departments to arrange and facilitate. During the pandemic, orders which involve unpaid work and other activities in the community have been difficult to carry out. In July, Social Work Scotland analysed the capacity of six local authorities to facilitate CPOs once the court system reopened after lockdown. The findings showed that the ‘majority of areas will be unable to deliver the accumulated backlog of unpaid work hours, let alone successfully manage the imposition of new orders’.
In a letter to Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf, social work chiefs wrote: ‘We concluded that due to the accruing backlog of hours – now approximately 720,000 – and the reduced capacity resulting from restrictions relating to coronavirus, there was an urgent need to address the pressures faced by Community Justice Social Work.
‘We made it clear that action was required to vary existing orders relating to unpaid work or other activity, [in regard to] to the total number of outstanding hours to be worked... [a total of] 450,000.’
Last night, the Scottish Government admitted it was considering how to tackle the backlog, but said: ‘No decision has yet been made and any action to vary community sentences would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and approval.’