Public consulted on community payback

RESIDENTS of Glasgow are being asked how offenders should pay back communities affected by crime.

Glasgow’s community justice authority has this week asked the public to share their views in a consultation already rolled out to 60 community councils, as well as faith groups and elected members.

According to Glasgow city council, 174,000 hours of unpaid work was ordered out to offenders last year, under community payback orders introduced in 2011 as part of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010.

Work included shovelling snow, picking litter in public parks, repairing community facilities and providing assistance for individuals and groups where needed.

Now, groups and individual residents are asked to share suggestions on where they think would benefit most from the community payback scheme.

Bailie Elaine McDougall, community justice authority convener, said: “The community payback order, and in particular unpaid work, is there to help communities.

“It is a real sentence, a punishment, and staff within social work – alongside those organisations which supervise work in the community – make sure it is a sentence.

“They also work with the offender to use the sentence to address problems linked to their behaviour, and improve skills and where possible, improve employability, making it less likely that someone will reoffend”.

She added that a benefit was that the public can see sentences are being served and see an improvement to their community in the process.