Hard labour? No, offenders demand part-time shifts!

OFFENDERS given soft-touch community sentences are increasingly demanding ‘light duties’ and parttime shifts – despite thousands of unpaid work orders going uncompleted every year.

Across Scotland, one in four orders to repay society, rather than go to jail, is not completed on time.

In Aberdeen, in the most recent report conducted by the Care Inspectorate, this rose to a third.

The report found this was partly due to council short-staffing, but also demands from offenders about what work they are prepared to do.

The Care Inspectorate report found: ‘A review of practice undertaken by the service identified reduced staffing capacity linked to local recruitment difficulties.

‘This was compounded by an increased demand for flexible unpaid work placements to enable individuals who had multiple and complex needs to undertake light duties or partial workdays.’

The report reveals that, across Scotland, just 74 per cent of unpaid work orders are completed on time. It is even worse in Aberdeen, at 66 per cent, according to the most recent figures, down from 83 per cent.

An Aberdeen City Council spokesman said: ‘People with multiple and complex needs include those with drug, alcohol, mental health, physical health and behavioural issues, often more than one, and often as a result of previous trauma. These have to be taken into consideration when placement suitability is assessed.

‘There is therefore a need for flexibility to enable individuals to complete unpaid work requirements.’

The Scottish Government is determined to increase the use of community payback orders (CPOs), including unpaid work, instead of prison.

Controversial new laws, such as the presumption against prison sentences of less than a year, have further increased use of CPOs.

But there is concern over whether they are a soft-touch option, especially after the Scottish Government wrote off more than 210,000 hours of unpaid work during the pandemic.

Russell Findlay, Scottish Conservative community safety spokesman, said: ‘The completion rate for CPOs is unacceptably low across Scotland.

‘When a sheriff imposes a sentence, it has to mean something. The public need to trust it will be implemented.

‘Under the SNP, the needs of the victim have been ignored in favour of protecting the accused.

‘This soft-touch approach undermines what CPOs are for.’

A Government spokesman said: ‘Individuals released from a custodial sentence of 12 months or less are reconvicted nearly twice as often as those given a CPO. In 2020/21, an additional £11.8 million was allocated to support community justice services in recovering from the pandemic. We intend to continue that for another year and increase it to £15 million.’

‘The needs of the victim have been ignored’