Our comment on the Scottish Government's debate on Achieving a Sustainable Prison Population.
Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Stephen Kerr MSP said: “Today’s announcement is the latest betrayal of crime victims by an SNP Government that has failed to plan for the prison capacity Scotland needs.
“Instead of tackling soaring court backlogs, reducing the remand population, and expanding prison capacity, SNP ministers have once again chosen the easy option - cutting the time offenders spend behind bars.
“This marks another significant weakening of Scotland’s sentencing system. Redefining a ‘short prison sentence’ from under four years to under five years will allow many offenders convicted of serious crimes to spend substantially less of their sentence in custody.
“Coupled with plans to allow more long-term prisoners to spend the final third of their sentence in the community, and extending the presumption against prison sentences to 24 months, these proposals send exactly the wrong message to victims and offenders alike.
“The Scottish Conservatives believe sentences should mean what the courts say they mean. Scotland needs more prison capacity, faster justice, fewer people languishing on remand because of court delays, and a justice system that puts victims first.
“That is why we would increase prison capacity in Scotland and make greater use of appropriate overseas prison capacity for foreign national offenders while that additional capacity is being built, rather than repeatedly asking victims to pay the price for ministerial failure.”