Community sentences must be immediately available - Brown (Dumfries Liberal Democrats)

Dumfries Liberal Democrats <tom@therussells.org.uk>

Community sentences must be immediately available - Brown

December 17, 2008 11:50 AM
Originally published by Scottish Liberal Democrats

Commenting on today's announcement from the Justice Secretary setting out the Governments approach to tackling offender management in Scotland, Liberal Democrat Justice Secretary Robert Brown said: "Community sentences for minor offenders allow more time to be spent with serious criminals tackling the root causes of crime such as drugs, mental health and literacy. They also help reduce overcrowding in Scotland's prisons.

"For community sentences to work properly, however, they need to be available as an immediate option to judges, consistently applied and regularly monitored.

"Liberal Democrats want to make sure that sufficient and effective resources are available to sheriffs to make this policy work.

"The major disappointment of today's announcement is that the Justice Secretary has failed to spell out his proposals on these matters and whether he has in place the resources to support tough community sentences."