Reforms to the Scottish justice system with new bill

The Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill, one of the largest pieces of legislation introduced by the Scottish Government, is to come before parliament today.

It includes measures to:

    * Create a Scottish Sentencing Council to ensure greater transparency and consistency in the sentencing process
    * Make sentences served in the community more robust, rapid and visible through the creation of the Community Payback Order and introduce a presumption against very short sentences in order to end the revolving door of re-offending
    * Take the fight to those involved in organised crime through the creation of new serious organised crime offences
    * New measures to strengthen the law on stalking
    * Crack down on prisoners who make use of advances in mobile phone technology to run their criminal empires from prison
    * Raise the age at which a child can be prosecuted in adult criminal courts from eight to 12 to help ensure the rights and needs of children are balanced properly with the protection of communities
    * Help the courts and prosecutors through a number of sensible reforms to the criminal law and court procedures – ensuring the interests of justice are served and protecting the rights of victims and witnesses
    * Assist in the detection of crime through improving law on the retention of DNA and fingerprint data for use in investigating and prosecuting crime
    * Provide a statutory framework for the disclosure of evidence to the defence in criminal cases – confirming the integrity as to how our courts deal with cases.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2010/06/29161519