Could justice be SNP’s Achilles’ heel? So far, the minority administration has had an easy ride with triumphant talk of nuclear energy, bridge tolls, A&E reprieves and even capital made from the fact that Gordon Brown refused to call and congratulate the new FM but now there is a wake-up call. There’s an elephant in the room that no one administration has yet been able to address. And that beast is crime. Politically, tackling crime is a no-win situation because people will always commit crime. It’s not like health where you might beat a waiting-time target or cure a few folk and everyone will cheer. Frankly, a petty criminal who eventually ends up in prison, does a bit of rehabilitation, leaves prison and goes on the straight and narrow, isn’t going to win you any plaudits but also doesn’t really reflect reality because prison is better known as the revolving door where the same old convicts get sentenced, get released, commit a crime, get sentenced….blah, blah. No politician ever stands on a husting and says that they will stop crime because they know that’s impossible so what they do is say that they will tackle crime better. But that becomes a mathematical problem; throwing juggling balls in the air and working out the best way to deal with a bad thing. The prison population keeps soaring and politicians keep arguing that they are tackling the problem and that the increased ail population is down to better clear up rates. Pish. Crime is a problem of society. The inability to tackle it is a problem of democracy because electoral programmes don’t fit with social justice initiatives that can take decades to show positive results. Prison doesn’t work. This much we know. In America where we turn for so many lessons, there are two million people in prison and five million on community restriction-type orders, which means they can be sent or recalled to prison at any time. does that make America feel like a safer country than Scotland? of course it doesn’t. Scotland, unlike other European countries has a knife problem and we are attempting to deal with that but don’t think for one moment that other European countries are faring better in the justice stakes. Scandinavia, for instance, has a huge problem with gangs and guns. drugs affect all European countries but without an effective approach to them, we flounder in the same quagmire of social disorder. Cathy Jamieson, Jim Wallace and now, Kenny MacAskill sing from almost the same hymn sheet despite their differing party colours. Justice is a serious portfolio with few gags or happy soundbites but one thing remains true, we should only ail those that we are truly scared of rather than those we are just mad at. Those that we are mad at can be punished in other ways. law and order was not a big electoral issue this time around, despite the fact that we are clearly facing enormous anti-social behaviour problems and there are more people in prison in Scotland today than ever before – we actually imprison more people per capita than anywhere else in Europe. Solving the justice problem in Scotland is no mean feat and Kenny MacAskill has taken a poisoned chalice in this portfolio but what he should remember is that any experiments with short, sharp, shock, just don’t work. We need long-term strategies that attack causes not consequences.
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