News In Focus
10 February 2010
One third of community service orders breached last year, figures show
Opposition politicians have attacked the Scottish Government’s plans to extend community sentencing orders after official figures showed that a third of community sentences were breached by their recipients last year.
The figures, released by Scotland’s Chief Statistician, show that 2,113 of the 6,437 offenders given a community service order in 2008-09 were reported to the courts for breaking the terms of their sentence.
Under the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill, currently being considered by the Scottish Parliament, prison sentences of less than six months would be replaced with community service orders.
Although the latest figures represent a 2% drop in the number of community service breaches since last year, the figure is up 41% since 2003.
Last year, 366 offenders subject to community orders had their original sentence revoked by the courts and were sent to jail, up from 360 in 2007-08.
The figures also show a big increase in probation orders being breached, along with high non-compliance with drug testing and treatment orders (DTTOs) and supervised attendance orders (SAOs).
For the 9,072 probation orders made last year, 5,698 breach applications were made to the court by supervising social workers, up 23% on the previous year.
Meanwhile, 29% of the 752 DTTOs were found to be breached, with 81 offenders sent to jail for non-compliance. More than half of the 4,306 criminals given an SAO, which forces them to undertake education or community activity, did not comply with its terms and were reported to the courts.
Tory community safety spokesman John Lamont said the figures showed that the SNP's “much-heralded 'community-based alternatives to prison' idea is a joke”, while Labour justice spokesman Richard Baker said the community service system was “on its knees”.
A Scottish Government spokesman said it was for the courts to decide what level of punishment to impose, and the figures showed that people who “step out of line” were being punished.