ABSTRACT
There is a notion, widespread in Scotland, that equates justice and punishment solely with the imprisonment of offenders. In this chapter we want to show that, despite Scotland’s exceptionally high rates of custody (see Chapter 12), most offenders are dealt with in the ‘community’ by monetary penalties and orders administered by social workers. The current political programme to market and design community penalties as ‘payback’ in contrast with short prison sentences will be considered against the backdrop of developments in the governance of community justice. The chapter starts by considering monetary penalties in Scotland, fines both imposed by courts and, of increasing importance, other enforcement agencies. The remainder of the chapter reviews ‘community sanctions and measures’, that is a range of orders which
maintain the offender in the community and involve some restriction of his liberty through the imposition of conditions and/or obligations, and which are implemented by bodies designated in law for that purpose. The term designates any sanction imposed by a court or a judge, and any measure taken before or instead of a decision on a sanction as well as ways of enforcing a sentence of imprisonment outside a prison establishment. (Council of Europe 1992: Appendix para. 1)
The discussion is in two parts: first, the background to and current developments in community sanctions administered by local authority criminal justice social workers; secondly, a short review of the supervision and resettlement of prisoners following release.
