A council committee this week heard community payback orders are not a ”soft option” for the courts.
The controversial sentences, which replaced community service in February last year, were designed by the Scottish Government as an alternative to short prison sentences.
They have been derided by justice campaigners and slammed by sheriffs but Perth and Kinross Council’s community safety committee was this week told they are working.
The orders can include unpaid work, supervision, compensation or treatment requirements and around 120 a month are handed down from the bench at Perth Sheriff Court.
Bill Brown, unpaid work team leader for Perth and Kinross Council, said: ”It’s important to work closely with communities in repairing the harm done to those communities. That provides reassurance because if people can see them repairing the harm, that goes a long way to reassuring them. It also provides opportunities for those on orders to gain work skills and break the cycle of offending, being preventative and getting those at the start of a career to gain skills and opportunities to access mainstream work.
”There is a misapprehension about the nature of the type of folk on unpaid work 60% are already in employment and are skilled tradesmen. Those fit and able to work but who are unwilling to comply are returned to court quickly so they will be dealt with. I don’t believe it’s a soft option.
”They are held accountable daily and weekly to ensure the hours are done, and where they don’t do that they are returned quickly to court.”
He said the council will face a future funding challenge as more CPOs are handed out.
The executive director of housing and community care, David Burke, said: ”If you can prevent someone going to prison there’s a considerable saving to the country around £40,000 a year. The cost of community payback orders is considerably less.
”We’re seeing a 37% reduction in the rate of reconviction. The Scottish Government is giving more money to allow the shift from prison-based sentences to more cost-effective community-based sentences.”
CPOs must be considered by sentencing sheriffs ahead of prison where the jail term would be less than three months, unless they feel there is no other option.
Campaigners claim the scheme is part of ”soft touch justice”, while last month Sheriff Lindsay Foulis, sitting at Perth, criticised the system for being overly complicated.
Councillor Caroline Shiers said: ”For many residents the perception is that a community payback order is nothing more than a soft option. The public have to be reassured that offenders are actually paying back to society for the crime they have committed.
”The public want to see justice being done and that means they ought to have a say in the type of work offenders carry out in their communities. To call it ‘unpaid work’ almost dresses it up to indicate that it is an optional nicety for petty criminals rather than them being forced to pay their dues to society and victims of their crime.
”If there is an ongoing commitment by the Scottish Government to reducing the number of short-term jail options then the public need to know that offenders are ordered to carry out community-based sentences that are tough, fast and effective.
”Without this assurance and a robust alternative, with funding in place to ensure orders can be completed and breaches dealt with, then custodial sentences of three months or less should have remained an option.
”Residents of Perth and Kinross need to know that the system works and that crime does not pay.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: ”The community payback order is simpler, faster, tougher and more effective than the community disposals it has replaced, drawing together a number of previous sentencing options for courts.”