National Strategy for Community Justice

This revised National Strategy for Community Justice sets the national direction for community justice by building on progress made to date. It is designed to provide a clear roadmap for future improvement work, by highlighting key areas for partners to focus on.


Table of National Aims and Priority Actions

National aim Priority action
1. Optimise the use of diversion and intervention at the earliest opportunity 1. Enhance intervention at the earliest opportunity by ensuring greater consistency, confidence in and awareness of services which support the use of direct measures and diversion from prosecution
2. Improve the identification of underlying needs and the delivery of support following arrest by ensuring the provision of person-centred care within police custody and building upon referral opportunities to services including substance use and mental health services
2. Ensure that robust and high quality community interventions and public protection arrangements are consistently available across Scotland 3. Support the use of robust alternatives to remand by ensuring high quality bail services are consistently available and delivered effectively
4. Strengthen options for safe and supported management in the community by increasing and widening the use of electronic monitoring technologies
5. Ensure that those given community sentences are supervised and supported appropriately to protect the public, promote desistence from offending and enable rehabilitation by delivering high quality, consistently available, trauma-informed services and programmes
6. Ensure restorative justice is available across Scotland to all those who wish to access it by promoting and supporting the appropriate and safe provision of available services
3. Ensure that services are accessible and available to address the needs of individuals accused or convicted of an offence 7. Enhance individuals' access to health and social care and continuity of care following release from prison by improving the sharing of information and partnership-working between relevant partners
8. Ensure that the housing needs of individuals in prison are addressed consistently and at an early stage by fully implementing and embedding the Sustainable Housing on Release for Everyone (SHORE) standards across all local authority areas
9. Enhance individual's life skills and readiness for employment by ensuring increased access to employability support through effective education, learning, training, career services and relevant benefit services
10. Enhance community integration and support by increasing and promoting greater use of voluntary throughcare and third sector services
4. Strengthen the leadership, engagement, and partnership working of local and national community justice partners 11. Deliver improved community justice outcomes by ensuring that effective leadership and governance arrangements are in place and working well, collaborating with partners and planning strategically
12. Enhance partnership planning and implementation by ensuring the voices of victims of crime, survivors, those with lived experience and their families are effectively incorporated and embedded
13. Support integration and reduce stigma by ensuring the community and workforce have an improved understanding of and confidence in community justice

Contact

Email: cjstrategy@gov.scot

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