Increased tagging to reduce prison numbers

The number of offenders in Scotland being tagged rather than jailed is increasing as the Scottish government signals “bold” moves to “redefine custody”.

Justice Secretary, Michael Matheson, aims to cut Scotland’s prison population, which is amongst the highest in Europe, through the increased use of electronic monitoring.

Mr Matheson visited HMP Low Moss in East Dunbartonshire to look at ways to prevent re-offending. He said there was now “common ground” across parties in Holyrood to allow prisons to focus efforts on the most high profile and troubling criminals.

He added: “We need to move away from this idea that we can be ‘soft’ or ‘tough’ on justice.”

He acknowledged that previous justice ministers have talked about moving away from prisons, without success, and that winning public support for policies that allow more offenders onto the streets and are labelled “soft on crime” would take hard work and communication.

“We need to be smart about justice. Our priority must be to use evidence-based approaches to create safer communities and reduce re-offending.

“We need to redefine what we mean by custody. I believe there is a greater opportunity to look at using a wider range of technology to address offending behaviour,” he said.

“There are thee factors that drive the risk of somebody committing an offence: lack of employment, lack of housing and family breakdown.

“Yet one of the things we do when someone gets a short term sentence is break all these things, take people away from their job, their homes and their families,” he added.

The Scottish government is expected to respond to its own consultation on a potential presumption against imprisonment for less than a year, however it is not known what the announcement will be but the justice secretary has been clear about changing the disadvantages of short jail sentences.