Community-based alternatives to custody to be promoted in Fife

A new report has praised the ongoing work in Fife to reduce offending and reoffending rates, although community safety partners have stressed there is still plenty of work to do.

Figures outlined in the Fife Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan for the period up to 2020, which outlines the commitment of various different agencies to cut crime and stop criminals from ending up back in the courts, have highlighted a need to develop and promote community-based alternatives to custody where possible.

The report revealed that the average custodial sentence length passed in a Fife court in 2014-15 was 206 days, with 43% of the 819 offences which merited a custodial sentence falling between the three and six-month mark.

A total of 239 of those jail sentences were for shoplifting offences and that, according to Bill Kinnear, service manager for criminal justice at Fife Council, is one area that clearly needs to be tackled.

Addressing Fife’s safer communities committee, which has approved the plan, Mr Kinnear said of the 239 custodial sentences for shoplifting: “What a tragic waste of public money that is. Do we really want people to go to prison for that?”

Mr Kinnear added that 20 women also received custodial sentences in 2014-15 despite criminal justice social work reports recommending a community-based alternative, and highlighted his belief that greater weight should be given to the reports drawn up.

“At the end of the day it is up to the sheriff to make a decision depending on what information is before him or her, and often sheriffs take a very different view,” he said.