Scottish government may introduce unlocked housing for young prisoners and nationalise secure care services.

[Scoffingbiscuits]

The Scottish government is extremely kind towards young convicted criminals. For example, until the age of 25, when they're sentenced the judge has to put what's in their best interests first and only sentence them to imprisonment as a last resort. This is what led to a young man convicted of raping a 13 year old girl in a park, twice, getting a community order to do 270 hours of community work.
It seems that they now want to make things pleasanter for young offenders who have, until now at least, been locked up for the safety of the community. It's short on detail as yet, but a warning of what's to come. The SNP are also looking at nationalising secure care services. A young person has to be very dangerous to end up locked up in Scotland these days, so let's hope that when secure care services are nationalised and the doors are unlocked all will go well for local communities.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15484349/SNP-want-young-thugs-therapeutic-hubs-no-locked-doors.html?i

I honestly don’t think there’s anything really controversial about this, just sounds like Castle Huntly for teenagers.

Barlinnie’s special unit, which was hugely successful, had unlocked doors back in the 70’s.

Seems like a non-story to me.

I find it strange that the SNP are very strong on people not having full criminal responsibility before they're 25, because their brain is still developing. So they get much lighter punishments than older criminals. But on the other hand, 1) 16 year olds are old enough to vote, 2) The SNP wanted to make it possible for 16 year olds to become MSPs, and only gave up on that after pushback from the public (who reminded them that children working in the Scottish Parliament would need child safeguarding measures), 3) The SNP seem to be very keen on the idea that far younger people should be able to decide on medical gender transition, including serious surgery.

It looks pretty factual to me. Isn't it?

I used to think the SNP decided what their policies were depending on what might get them the biggest vote (the 16 year old voters being a classic example) but they then adopted policies no matter how mad that would differentiate them from rUK and make them look ‘kinder’. They’re not very bright though and failed to check the other side of the argument to see whether they were making themselves a laughing stock.

Take Gender ID. Oh we want to be nice to the poor AGP blokes so we let them be women, without thinking that perhaps women didn’t want blokes in their single sex spaces and had rights which protected these spaces. Same with this policy. It’s easy to say ‘poor wee scone, his dad battered him so he batters others, he can’t help it, he just needs love’ totally forgetting about the battered victim.

Sandie Peggie is going to take the Scottish government to the cleaners and they know it. Just as the parents of the first child that dies due to this dangerous, stupid policy will too.

The vote is 16 yet jury service is (as I understand) still 18 in all cases.

So able to vote to change a Civic Duty via the Election process while not yet old enouge to carry out the same Civic Duty.

So it turns out this is just another generic SNP Bashing thread.

I’m shocked.

Well if they keep doing bloody stupid things…

If they ran the country well people would vote for Indy. Just now the UK Supreme Court is the ONLY thing preventing the SNP chucking women’s rights under a bus.

Yeah, there are no shortage of active threads for that.

You’ve engaged people all day who had discussed and debated you in good faith taking what you’ve said at face value.

Then your real agenda has come crawling out.

Nothing wrong with criticising parties, at least be honest about it though.

Complete cliché.

The main topic of the thread is young criminals and the fact that many of us feel that they are treated too leniently (both in and out of school). Crucially, they are not treated as full adults within the criminal justice system until they're 25, supposedly because their brains are not fully developed until then. So I'm asking you why the SNP think that it is crucial that a person is 25, with a fully developed brain, to receive an adult punishment for a serious crime, whereas they consider a child of only 16 to be old enough to be a member of Parliament. It's a fair and relevant question. Stop trying to dodge it.

They don’t have to make these policies. They could decide to put victims first. They could decide to do something about soaring violence in schools. But they don’t. They blame teachers instead. They suggest that if teachers hand the violent thug mid punch a laminated a4 sheet reminding them of their responsibilities towards others they would stop their punching. They tell teachers they’re not building good enough relationships.

They let young offenders off with rape and give those committing repeated violent assaults cautions. Like the first caution made a difference!

These are choices the Scottish government has willingly made. They could change tack, say that they got it wrong, apologise to victims and make amends - same as with the gender issue - and they would gain the moral high ground and the respect of so many. But they choose not to. It speaks volumes.

There are also serious concerns that lack of consequences for poor behaviour in schools & the community is fuelling youth crime in Scotland. County lines is more appealing when they know if caught there are no consequences. We've literally had teens with machetes on Rose St in Edinburgh recently. We need proper enforcement of decent behaviour by everyone - all this SNP toss about not having a developed brain till you're 30 is nonsense. A lot of cognitive functions start to decline in your twenties! If you don't know or care that violence, theft and vandalism are wrong by the time you're 20 then frankly I doubt you ever will care.

And hard agree with previous posters on the mess of being able to vote at 16, marry at 16 (still legal in Scotland), drive at 17, join the armed forces & buy alcohol at 18 but apparently your brain isn't well developed enough to know that crime is wrong till you're 25. Absolute nonsense.

I think 16 year olds having a say in society is a great thing, I was living independently at not much older than that.

I’m a firm believer in anyone that pays taxes should have a say.

Again this just comes down to people’s perception of what justice is, obviously a 23 year old is more likely to be receptive to support and interventional methods than a 43 year old.

Suppose it depends on your outlook, whether you prefer vengeful sentences or a balanced way forward.

Personally I think a lot depends on the circumstances, I don’t think a 19 year old who gets into a fight should be treated as harshly as a 40 year old in general but each case is specific.

Biologically and psychologically there is a huge difference between young men and adults, maybe you think this shouldn’t matter when it comes to justice, but western legal systems clearly do.

Even going back 25 years sheriffs sentenced young people differently, to be honest apart from a few really controversial cases I haven’t seen much change.

I missed this yesterday.

Clearly every single male you know then has lived a sheltered existence or would you maybe consider the possibility that they just haven’t told you.

Do you genuinely think that none of the teenagers you know have never got into a scrap on a football pitch or an argument in school hasn’t spilled over with a few punches?

HSBC done a study last year which stated that 20% of 15 year olds have been involved in a fight in the last 12 months alone.

For adult males 40% have reported being punched in their adult lives and 30% have admitted punching someone.

I have no idea what kind of blinkers you wear but the reality of life is very different.

I imagine certain sorts of male teens have been involved in fights in the past year. In fact 20% seems really low to me. No one I know thankfully. We seem to move in different circles.

16 year olds having a say in society is a very different thing from thinking that 16 year olds should be representing large constituencies, dealing with a myriad of constituency issues and voting in Parliament on large volumes of legislation, sitting on committees, etc, as their full time job in the Scottish Parliament.
So you are seriously telling us that you think a 16 year old is capable of being a member of parliament but that due to their brain not being fully developed they are NINE YEARS too young to take full responsibility for raping a girl or woman?

@Meeplemakeglasgow And punishing criminals who have committed serious crimes is not just about vengeance. Imprisonment acts as a deterrent and keeps dangerous individuals off the streets. Young men (under the age of 25) who know that they can commit crimes again and again with no risk of going to prison will continue to commit crimes.

The Scottish Government wants to put fewer young criminals in locked facilities and to move to a more therapeutic model, without locks, except in the most dangerous cases. We're talking about serious crime in this context. Please have a quick look at this article (it's from the Daily Mail but is a near-verbatim quote from the Scottish Government), and then take part in the consultation that the Scottish government is currently running. Don't let them say that they received no objections.
Here is the article again (I posted it yesterday too):
PressReader.com - Digital Newspaper & Magazine Subscriptions

And here's a link to the consultation - please take part in this if you can. Note also: "The SNP gov­ern­ment also pro­poses ‘nation­al­ising secure care’ which ‘could involve cre­at­ing a single national ser­vice, tak­ing over exist­ing ser­vices and staff and buy­ing out cur­rent pro­viders’. This would ‘shift a lot of respons­ib­il­ity to the national level and would require major pub­lic invest­ment’."

The future of secure care and the single point of contact (SPOC) for victims in the Children's Hearings System - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space

The Scottish government have lost their minds. Again! It's embarrassing for me that I used to vote for the SNP. Never again, they've failed in every possible way for me, and the worst being the failure to tackle violence and bullying in our schools. I really fear for our children.

Why should a 40 year old be treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than a 19 year old? That's simply discrimination. A 40 year old is much more likely to have dependent children, and far fewer options for further education and training than a teen. It's agism. On average a 19 year old male is much more dangerous physically in a fight than 40 year old, so their victim is hardly getting off more lightly either.

21 years of maturity.

If you pay tax you have a right to have an opinion and to fully participate in society.

Nothing to do with the criminal justice/brain development debate.

Yet another false equivalence from you.

Less of your passive aggression please, you’ve made it very clear you live in a bubble where the real world doesn’t apply.

Plus you’ve admitted yourself you’re talking complete nonsense, you know the teenage boy who (allegedly) attacked your nephew.

If any of that story is true of course.

Most of us don’t live/associate with people we consider to be violent.

It doesn’t protect you from them though, especially if you’re a young male.

But what if the 40 yo identifies as a 19yo?
always bewildered when people use the “you’re just x bashing you big meanie!!! Don’t say things that mean you don’t agree with me!!”

Can you try to translate that into something coherent please?