community sentences

Scottish Sentencing Council Report: Judicial Perspectives on Community-Based Disposals

On 28/10/21 the Scottish Sentencing Council published a report entitled, 'Judicial Perspectives on Community-Based Disposals', drawing on research and engagement carried out with sentencers and others. One of its more significant findings was that “that one of the greatest challenges to judicial confidence in community-based disposals concerns limitations of resources to support their management and delivery”, rather than lack of awareness of available services and programmes.

The Community Orders (Coronavirus)(Scotland) Regulations 2021

On 28 January 2021, The Community Orders (Coronavirus)(Scotland) Regulations 2021 were laid to reduce the outstanding number of unpaid work hours under existing Community Payback Orders by 35% (except those imposed for domestic abuse, sexual offences, or stalking). We wrote to the Justice Committee supporting the secondary legislation, but questioning the fairness and validity of the exclusions. The statutory instrument was passed.

Outstanding Unpaid Work (Community Payback Orders)

On 15 July 2020, Social Work Scotland published an important paper drawing attention to the 700K outstanding hours of unpaid work under community payback orders and imploring the Scottish Government to use secondary legislation to reduce this by 450K hours in order to avoid serious ramifications across the whole criminal justice system. We welcomed this timely intervention, with its insightful comment and detailed modelling.

Archive

2021

2020

2018

2015

2014

Subscribe to community sentences