PRESS RELEASE

February 11th, 2009

Think again on prison cuts

Greenock and Inverclyde MSP Duncan McNeil has criticised the Scottish Government for its plans to hand out more community sentences after it was revealed that one in three are breached.

The latest figures show that the number of breaches has nearly doubled in the last five years.

In Inverclyde alone, 38 of the 113 offenders handed community service simply didn’t turn up, more than a third.

The MSP insists these figures make a mockery of the SNP government’s plans to abolish six-month sentences and replace them with non-custodial community disposals.

He said: “I am all for making community sentences more effective and visible to our neighbourhoods.

“But until we deal with the problem of non-compliance, extending community service system by 12,000 places makes no sense.

“The only people who will benefit from this approach are offenders who will escape prison and in a third of cases escape punishment altogether.

“For the public to have any confidence in community service disposals, we need to ensure they are being enforced and these figures show this is not happening.”

ENDS