S.n.p.s 6 Month Policy, Letting the neds off Options

[ton5saints1]

Bloody disgraceful that the S.N.P. have announced their plans to scrap prison for those sentenced to 6 months or less.

Loads of wee neds up and down the country must be killing themselves laughing.

[lazy_ar*e_studen...]

This has been mooted by the SNP for a few years now. What we have seen is McCaskill talking about change for Community Sentencing making it appear to be more effecticve to the Scottish public than Prison, getting away from the "bed and board" mentality. Whilst I can see certain circumstances when CS is more appropriate than Prison (i.e. fine defaulters) and can understand their reasons, to have a carte blanch 6 months can be dangerous and likely to be (a) unpopular and ( unlikely to happen.

This post has been edited by lazy_ar*e_student: Mar 6 2009, 05:02 PM

[Alibi]

Is it not the case though that the offenders who really need to be inside will be getting sentences greater than 6 months anyway? I would assume that for assault or stabbing etc a short sentence wouldn't be considered appropriate. I can see the point of not imprisoning people for minor offences, but surely they must take into consideration the nature of the offence too?

The real problem here is too many people breaking the law in the first place.

This post has been edited by Alibi: Mar 6 2009, 05:05 PM

[Tom_McB]

The real problem here is too many people breaking the law in the first place.

Reducing the punishment is unlikely to change that.

[David Edwards]

Is it not the case though that the offenders who really need to be inside will be getting sentences greater than 6 months anyway? I would assume that for assault or stabbing etc a short sentence wouldn't be considered appropriate. I can see the point of not imprisoning people for minor offences, but surely they must take into consideration the nature of the offence too?

The real problem here is too many people breaking the law in the first place.

They must be unionists.

[ton5saints1]

Is it not the case though that the offenders who really need to be inside will be getting sentences greater than 6 months anyway? I would assume that for assault or stabbing etc a short sentence wouldn't be considered appropriate. I can see the point of not imprisoning people for minor offences, but surely they must take into consideration the nature of the offence too?

No - length of time doesn't come into it whether your sentenced to 7 days or 7 years.
Many fairly serious crimes, possession of knives being one, can carry 3/6 month sentences and it's disgraceful that the S.N.P. heirachy think that can be replaced by community service.

The real problem here is too many people breaking the law in the first place.

Totally agree.

Unfortunately the policy has been designed because prisons are at breaking point and has absolutely nothing to do with rehabilitation or whatever else it's meant to achieve.

It might even spur me on to join my local S.N.P. group as it's a disgraceful policy to let hundreds of wee neds off the hook.

Bring back the birch !!!

[lazy_ar*e_studen...]

As I said T5S1, if you read any of the documents round Community Sentencing whilst they don't say in blatant terms what you said it is pretty obvious what they're looking at, increasing the use of CS to reduce the numbers of prisoners- I think in South Ayrshire they had a pilot of not sending fine defaulters to Prison but instead issuing a Supervised Attendence Order, as a result ppl paid their fines!