1 in 4 offenders on community payback don’t do ANY work
RECORD numbers of criminals are being given community sentences that do not involve them doing any type of work.
Ministers had pledged that offenders handed community Payback Orders (CPOS) as an alternative to short jail sentences would be made to ‘sweat’.
but only 73 per cent now have to perform work of any sort as part of their punishment, new figures show.
it comes amid fears that social workers are too thin on the ground to cope with a fresh wave of CPOS as a result of the SNP’s extension of the scheme.
scottish conservative justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: ‘The SNP’s effective abolition of short sentences has always been about emptying prisons regardless of the cost to society.
‘The low and consistently decreasing unpaid work elements included in community sentences demonstrate this beyond any doubt.
‘Once again, the SNP’s softtouch justice and their failure to properly resource the criminal justice system has left victims abandoned.’
in 2011, the SNP introduced a presumption against the use of jail sentences lasting for three months or less.
As justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill insisted those handed CPOS instead would ‘pay back by the sweat of their brows for the harm that they have done’.
However, scottish government statistics show that of 16,418 CPOS in 2018-19, only 12,043 – or 73 per cent – included unpaid work. it is the fifth consecutive annual drop.
More than a quarter of those on CPOS spend their time on activities such as anger management classes, addiction counselling or parenting seminars.
For those given work, the average number of hours rose slightly to 127, though that is far short of the 146 hours those on probation and community service typically had to do before CPOS were introduced.
From last summer, judges have been told to impose jail terms of up to 12 months only as a ‘last resort’. As a result, the prison population has been falling every month since October.
However, the number of criminal justice social workers dedicated to working with offenders has risen from 2,000 to only 2,100 since 2011.
in 2017, there were 50 serious offences committed by those on CPOS, including three murders, according to figures from the care inspectorate watchdog. in
February, two thugs were jailed for life for the murder of 48year-old george calvert after the pair were sent away from a CPO work placement.
instead, stephen O’Donnell and robert Muir, both 30, spent the time drinking before savagely beating their victim in his flat in Paisley, renfrewshire.
The scottish government said CPOS were ‘delivering real benefits to communities and supporting rehabilitation’.
A spokesman added: ‘it is up to the sentencing judge to decide the most appropriate sentence, including which requirements to impose as part of a CPO, having considered all the circumstances of the case.’