National Strategy for Community Justice revision: consultation

7. Draft national aims and priority actions

This section includes the draft national aims and priority actions for the revised strategy. The national aims reflect our ambition for community justice and encompass: early intervention and alternatives to prosecution (Aim 1); community sentences and alternatives to remand (Aim 2); access to services (Aim 3); and the mechanisms of community justice for those working in the sector (Aim 4). These aims have been informed by the responses to the review consultation and developed with the input of partners. We are now seeking views on these aims from a broad range of partners and the public to help us finalise the revised strategy.

The table below lists all the aims and priority actions; further detail is then provided about each in turn.

National aim / Priority action

1. Optimise the use of diversion and intervention at the earliest opportunity

• 1. Enhance early intervention by ensuring greater consistency, confidence in and awareness of services which support the use of direct measures and diversion from prosecution
• 2. Improve support for vulnerable individuals by ensuring the provision of consistent, equitable and accessible immediate support in a crisis and screening within Police Custody Centres
• 3. Improve support following arrest by ensuring substance use and mental health services are available and appropriate referrals take place at the earliest opportunity

2. Ensure that robust and consistent community interventions and public protection arrangements are in place across Scotland

• 4. Support the use of credible and robust alternatives to remand by ensuring high quality services are consistently available and delivered effectively
• 5. Strengthen supported management in the community by increasing and widening the use of electronic monitoring and technologies
• 6. Ensure that those given community sentences are managed appropriately and safely by delivering high quality, consistently available, trauma-informed services and programmes that support public protection
• 7. Ensure restorative justice is available across Scotland to all those who wish to access it by ensuring consistent provision and effective promotion of available services

3. Ensure that services are available to address the needs of individuals accused or convicted of an offence

• 8. Enhance individuals’ access to health and social care and continuity of care following release from prison by improving the sharing of information between relevant partners
• 9. Ensure that the housing needs of individuals in prison are addressed consistently and at an early stage by fully implementing and embedding the SHORE standards across all local authority areas
• 10. Enhance individual’s readiness for employment by ensuring increased access to employability support through effective education, learning, training, careers services and relevant benefit services
• 11. Enhance community integration and support by increasing and promoting greater consistency in the use of voluntary throughcare and third sector services

4. Strengthen leadership, engagement, and partnership working

• 12. Deliver improved community justice outcomes by ensuring that effective leadership arrangements are in place and working well, collaborating with partners and planning strategically
• 13. Enhance partnership planning and implementation by ensuring the voices of victims, survivors, those with lived experience and their families are effectively incorporated
• 14. Support integration and reduce stigma by ensuring the local community and workforce have an improved understanding of and confidence in community justice

Aim 1: Optimise the use of diversion and intervention at the earliest opportunity

Where appropriate, effectively diverting people away from prosecution - or away from the justice system entirely - can allow individuals to address a range of issues, behaviours or needs which have contributed to their alleged offending behaviour at the earliest opportunity. This can lead to less offending and reoffending and ultimately less victimisation and harm to society. We also recognise that those who come into contact with the justice system often present with higher levels of vulnerability than the general population and often have complex needs. We therefore want to ensure that, wherever appropriate, people are diverted away from the justice system at the earliest opportunity, and that opportunities are provided to address underlying needs and causes of offending behaviour.

Over the duration of this strategy community justice partners will:

1. Enhance early intervention by ensuring greater consistency, confidence in and awareness of services which support the use of direct measures and diversion from prosecution

The effective use of police and fiscal direct measures, including diversion from prosecution, can allow individuals to address a range of issues, behaviours or needs which have contributed to their offending behaviour at the earliest opportunity –including allowing beneficial interventions to individuals who do not enter police custody. This may be particularly effective in supporting those with dependence on substances or a mental health need. We must optimise the mechanisms for direct measures, for example by enhancing information pathways and supporting consistency of use by Police Scotland and COPFS. We must also ensure that effective services are in place across Scotland for individuals to be diverted into, recognising the differences between rural and urban geographies. These services should be available in a timely manner and allow individuals to meaningfully engage. Decision-makers (including the judiciary and prosecutors) should also have an understanding of and confidence in the schemes which are available locally.

2. Improve support for vulnerable individuals by ensuring the provision of consistent, equitable and accessible immediate support in a crisis and screening within Police Custody Centres

We want to ensure that those who are entering police custody – who are often less likely to engage with community health, social care and other services – have access to healthcare and/or a pathway to appropriate support or interventions to address the underlying causes of offending. Arrest referrals are the key to providing onward support and the opportunity to help people engage with services such as drug use treatment services, reducing the likelihood of involvement in offending behaviour in the future. We want to ensure that individuals can immediately be referred to the full range of services, irrespective of their place of detention and/or place of residence. Immediate crisis support should also be provided where appropriate, and we recognise the importance of the Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) Programme which is to be rolled out to all NHS Board areas by 2024.

3. Improve support following arrest by ensuring substance use and mental health services are available and appropriate referrals take place at the earliest opportunity

There is a high prevalence of substance use in individuals coming into contact

with the criminal justice system, and many people who have died a drug related death have been in recent contact with the criminal justice system. We also recognise that those who come into contact with the justice system often have complex needs, including mental health needs. Substance use and mental health problems often go hand-in-hand – and many need multi-faceted support simultaneously.

The Scottish Government takes seriously the responsibility to ensure those going through the criminal justice system are appropriately supported, treated and cared for, while ensuring their rights are being maintained, especially during these challenging times that may have a significant impact on people's mental wellbeing.

Our intention is to ensure that mental health and substance support is offered, and where appropriate, provided following arrest. Services should be available at the point of need and individuals should have choice and control in relation to their own treatment. Specifically, the Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards should be fully implemented, embedded and mainstreamed across Scotland, including in justice settings.

Aim 2: Ensure that robust and consistent community interventions and public protection arrangements are in place across Scotland

While we are committed to shifting the balance towards greater use of community interventions where appropriate – and our long term ambition is that people should only be held in custody when they present a risk of serious harm – public protection is our first priority. Therefore, we must ensure that there are robust and high quality community-based interventions, which support rehabilitation, including alternatives to remand, electronic monitoring and community sentences. The awareness of and confidence in these interventions must also be improved, particularly among the judiciary, prosecutors and the general public. Restorative justice, which, in the majority of cases, must be led by those who have been harmed, can also provide opportunity for safe communication between people harmed by crime and offending and those responsible for that harm. This will improve outcomes for individuals who are able to remain within more supportive environments and ensure that victims and communities feel safe and protected.

Over the duration of this strategy community justice partners will:

4. Support the use of credible and robust alternatives to remand by ensuring high quality services are consistently available and delivered effectively

While remand will always be necessary in some cases, there are negative effects of short periods of time in custody – including upon peoples' health, employment opportunities, relationships and housing. With a remand population of around 30% in March 2022, there is a need to strengthen community-based alternatives to remand.

Statutory community justice agencies, along with local third sector partners, should work collaboratively to ensure the appropriate provision of robust and person-centred alternatives to remand across all 32 local authority areas in Scotland. This includes providing a credible bail supervision service, and enabling access to electronically monitored bail, which meets the standards of provision set out in National Guidance. In light of the increase in the numbers of individuals accessing bail supervision in the two years before the Covid-19 pandemic, partners must ensure that operational capacity grows and is maintained to meet this.

5. Strengthen supported management in the community by increasing and widening the use of electronic monitoring and technologies

Electronic monitoring is an integral part of the justice pathway, with expanded use creating opportunities to provide supported integration into the community and allowing for management of an individual in the community as an alternative to custody. To support its use partners should improve information sharing and reporting to allow for appropriate assessments and provision of services for individuals.

The approach to development and gathering robust evidence on the uses of electronic monitoring, including from a user perspective, will be a collaborative one involving a range of justice partners and will help inform future development. It is anticipated that new technologies, such as satellite tracking (also known as GPS) and remote substance monitoring will be introduced which will provide more opportunities for managing and supporting individuals within their communities. Strong engagement between health and justice partners will be required to underpin any use of remote substance monitoring. All the while building, maintaining and strengthening relationships with third sector organisations to ensure victims are represented.

6. Ensure that those given community sentences are managed appropriately and safely by delivering high quality, consistently available, trauma-informed services and programmes that support public protection

Recovery of capacity in the justice system and community justice services following from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic remains a priority. Our ambitions are however greater than returning the system to pre-pandemic levels. We want to see a greater availability of community orders which are as effective as possible and which improve outcomes for individuals. Effective interventions require proactive involvement across community justice partners, third sector and wider communities.

While decisions about funding are subject to future spending reviews and agreement by Parliament, the Scottish Government has set out its intention to invest in a substantial expansion of community justice services supporting diversion from prosecution, alternatives to remand, and community sentencing. Working both within existing resources where possible and with any additional funding available, community justice partners should take steps to both increase the quality and range of interventions. These should include support for addiction, interventions focussed on the causes of offending and opportunities to improve transitions to positive destinations such as employment, training and further education. Partners should also work with the Scottish Government to develop plans to better support people with substance use in community justice which will be informed by the recommendations of the Drug Deaths Task Force.

MAPPA (Multi-agency public protection arrangements) allow those eligible for MAPPA to be carefully managed in the community by the relevant professionals, allowing close collaboration, partnership-working and regular oversight for those where it is needed. Our ambition also is to expand the coverage of existing national programmes that support public protection, that match the risk and need profile identified nationally and reduce the prospect of further harm. A partnership approach should be taken to programme roll out and redesign and partners contribute, including through data held, to their evaluation and development.

7. Ensure restorative justice is available across Scotland to all those who wish to access it by ensuring consistent provision and effective promotion of available services

Restorative justice supports the exploration and delivery of safe communication between people harmed by crime and offending and those responsible for that harm. Consistent, high-quality, trauma-informed restorative justice can empower individuals and communities impacted by harmful behaviour and assist in their recovery, and encourages those who have caused harm to reflect on the impact of their actions, helping to reduce recidivism.

The vision of the Restorative Justice Action Plan includes a commitment to having restorative justice services available across Scotland to all those who wish to access it, and at a time that is appropriate to the people and case involved. The model for delivery of restorative justice in Scotland requires an effective link with community justice partners and local communities to support implementation. Community justice partners should support the aims and objectives of the Action Plan, raise awareness of restorative justice across their communities and partners, engage with the national and local delivery model for restorative justice, and provide referral routes for restorative justice across justice and community services.

Aim 3: Ensure that services are available to address the needs of individuals accused or convicted of an offence

Where an individual is in contact with the justice system, there is an opportunity to ensure that they are able to engage with the services that they will require in order to support their basic needs, to rehabilitate themselves, and not to reoffend. While justice services and specialised throughcare services can plan and support the transition of individuals through and out of the justice system, effective integration and reintegration can only be delivered through the engagement of our universal public services (such as healthcare, employability support and housing). These services must be aware of the particular needs and circumstances of people with convictions, and be prepared to meet those needs in a timely fashion.

Over the duration of this strategy community justice partners will:

8. Enhance individuals' access to health and social care and continuity of care following release from prison by improving the sharing of information between relevant partners

Prisons should be health promoting environments which support good health and wellbeing. There are many complex needs for which individuals require support on entering custody, including: rising social care needs as the population ages; people with complex physical and mental health needs; neurodivergent people and people with learning disabilities; Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES); and substance use. We are clear that early intervention, person-centred, trauma-responsive and collaborative approaches are key to improving outcomes.

Partners should work together to ensure that both relevant information is made available on admission to support the healthcare needs of individuals while they are in custody and that transition from custody to community is seamless with health needs supported to ensure successful reintegration where people do not experience stigma and discrimination upon accessing services. This will involve collaborative working across multi-agency partnerships, ensuring that there are information sharing agreements where required and shared support plans, and ensuring that there is shared awareness and understanding about what each organisation involved in health does and shared guidance and training is in place.

9. Ensure that the housing needs of individuals in prison are addressed consistently and at an early stage by fully implementing and embedding the SHORE standards across all local authority areas

People who have stable housing are less likely to reoffend. The Sustainable Housing On Release for Everyone (known as SHORE) standards promote a national consistent approach in meeting the housing needs of individuals in the justice system - which is person-centred and trauma-informed. SHORE should ensure that everyone who needs it is appropriately engaged and their individual needs are identified at the earliest opportunity and subsequently receives timely housing advice and support, to identify and secure sustainable housing upon their release, no matter where they are serving their sentence.

SHORE outlines the processes which should be followed from admission to post release to:

• co-ordinate efforts to maintain existing tenancies and possessions;
• minimise instances of emergency homelessness upon liberation; and
• provide suitable sustainable tenancies on release that individuals are supported to maintain, including Housing First if appropriate.

In order to fully implement and embed SHORE, partners should develop and engage within multi-agency protocols which address the needs of relevant individuals and describe the local processes between community justice partners and prisons.

10. Enhance individual's readiness for employment by ensuring increased access to employability support through effective education, learning, training, careers services and relevant benefit services

Being employed has been shown to be associated with reduced reoffending. The way we support individuals to access, retain and sustain employment, training and education, before, during and after they are involved in the justice system is therefore critical. Community justice partners should take a person-centred approach, recognising that individuals are at different stages of the employability pathway and that not all individuals serving community sentences, in custody or leaving custody are 'employment ready', with additional needs such as addiction, healthcare, benefits and housing which may need to be addressed before an individual is ready to secure employment. However, increasing numbers of employers are speaking out to recognise that when properly selected, and given support where appropriate, individuals with previous convictions can not only secure and sustain employment, but can prove to be committed and successful employees.

No One Left Behind is the Scottish and Local Government's partnership approach to an all age employability service working with partners at a local, regional and national level to deliver a person-centred, place based design and delivery. In implementing this commitment, community justice partners should ensure that there are direct pathways between the justice system and employability services in particular with Local Employability Partnerships which operate in every Local Authority area to provide support to individuals to progress into and sustain quality jobs. Employability leads should engage with SPS, Justice Social Work and others to continually develop and enhance relationships, policy and processes, enhance community links, and ensure that the pathways to employability are supported at each key stage.

Leading by example, statutory partners should also examine their own recruitment processes to ensure that people with unspent criminal convictions are not, in practical terms, being unnecessarily excluded from the possibility of employment.

11. Enhance community integration and support by increasing and promoting greater consistency in the use of voluntary throughcare and third sector services

When an individual is released from custody, they are likely to have been disconnected from mainstream public services, and will need to re-engage. This is a vulnerable point, where any gaps or failures in the delivery of support can have severe consequences for the individual, leading to demand for emergency support, or for others to reoffending and a return to custody. To support individuals, there are a range of throughcare, third sector and specialised services which engage with individuals, depending on their circumstances. Prisoners who are not subject to statutory supervision on release can request voluntary throughcare assistance provided by local authorities. Local Authorities have a statutory responsibility to offer voluntary throughcare, which consists of advice, guidance and assistance to individuals who request such a service either before release from custody or within 12 months of their release. Prisoners may also obtain voluntary throughcare support from a range of national and/or local third sector services, depending on their circumstances.

Partners should work together to ensure that effective and consistent throughcare services are in place, working in co-ordination with the activities of the SPS, Justice Social Work and other public services supporting individuals in custody, to meet the specific needs of different groups of individuals within the justice system. This will involve robust co-ordination and planning processes being in place across justice, public and third sector services, to plan those activities in co-operation with individuals. There is also a need to ensure that public services are aware of the particular needs and challenges faced by individuals in the justice system, and for them to pro-actively engage with that population at the earliest stage, to ensure their needs are supported.

Aim 4: Strengthen leadership, engagement, and partnership working

It is necessary for community justice partners to work together at a local level to adopt a strategic approach to planning and delivering improved outcomes, and lasting change for individuals and communities. This includes ensuring the active involvement of the third sector, relevant community-based organisations, communities and people who use local services (including people with convictions, victims and their families) in the planning and delivery of community justice within their areas. Ensuring that victims feel supported, that their voice is heard and that they are empowered to participate effectively in their justice journey is critical to achieve an inclusive justice system. Central to the strategy is also the need to ensure that the Scottish public, communities and workforce have an improved understanding of and confidence in community justice.

Over the duration of this strategy community justice partners will:

12. Deliver improved community justice outcomes by ensuring that effective leadership arrangements are in place and working well, collaborating with partners and planning strategically

It is the collective responsibility of statutory partners to ensure the achievement of community justice outcomes, and the legislative requirements within the Act, rather than partnership chairs or coordinators. Community justice should be embedded as a key consideration within the priorities of each community justice partner, implementation of the delivery plan should be prioritised, and roles and responsibilities must be understood. Strong and innovative leadership is required, with effective accountability and communication mechanisms between national organisations and their representatives driving community justice partnership activity locally, in addition to collective local partnership accountability arrangements.

The provision of data is vital to the success of strategic planning and to allow the measurement of progress against outcomes. Statutory community justice partners must work with both Community Justice Scotland and partnerships to ensure that all partnerships receive necessary information in a regular and systematic way.

At a local level, community justice partnerships should:

• clearly define their role and what is in their remit, and ensure effective collaboration with other community planning groups (and vice versa). As previously stated, the focus of this strategy is from the point of arrest onwards and we would not encourage community justice partnerships to focus on primary prevention.
• carry out strategic planning, monitoring and reporting activity to ensure the identification of local priorities. This will include maintaining a current evidence base and an understanding of local needs and service provision. Identified local improvement priorities should be clearly presented within the CJOIP. These activities and a robust use of programme and project management (PPM) methodologies (with SMART actions) should underpin the targeting of resources to improvement activity identified in CJOIPs.
• seek to secure the contribution of partners and other stakeholders, including the third sector (and reflect this in their participation statements), to help bolster community justice resources. This can include information sharing, co-ordinated planning and joined-up services, as well as contributing staff and other resources (including working across local authority boundaries), as is required to meet the outcomes noted in their local plan to deliver community justice outcomes.
• work across regional boundaries to facilitate peer learning and share best practice.

13. Enhance partnership planning and implementation by ensuring the voices of victims, survivors, those with lived experience and their families are effectively incorporated

Ultimately, we want victims and families impacted by the justice system to feel heard, understood and empowered to participate in their justice journey. Community justice partners need to have an awareness of, and to work in partnership with, support for victims and families that is available both locally and nationally. They should also identify how partnerships can contribute towards the achievement of improved outcomes for victims by providing person-centred and trauma-informed support, and for families, by ensuring they are included and informed of the decisions that affect them and that families are connected, and that support is given to ensure families are safe and well.

In order to understand what is important to our communities and to avoid unconscious bias, community justice partners should also ensure that those with lived experience of the justice system have the opportunity to appropriately and effective participate and that their experience is represented in order to inform policy development, implementation, and the design and delivery of services.

14. Support integration and reduce stigma by ensuring the local community and workforce have an improved understanding of and confidence in community justice

Partners should work to improve the visibility of community justice and ensure it is positioned as an important part of the local and national justice landscape. Specifically, partners should work collaboratively to improve understanding and confidence in community justice amongst the Scottish public and the local justice workforce. Partners should utilise the resources provided by Community Justice Scotland, as part of their statutory duty to promote public understanding of community justice and the benefits associated with it. Partners can then build on this foundation to shift attitudes and increase support for community justice as an approach. This can in turn support integration and reduce stigma, leading to improved community justice outcomes.