McLeish Calls For A Wider Debate On Alcohol And Crime

THE head of the Scottish Prisons Commission yesterday called for a national debate on the place of alcohol in society, describing the level of drink-related crime as “shocking”.

Henry McLeish admitted he was “embarrassed” by the absence of drunks on the street during a fact-finding visit to New York, in contrast to Scotland.

A report by the commission, published two months ago, called for low-level offenders to be “worked hard” in the community.

It also recommended that the number of inmates should be cut from 8,700 to 5,000 within a decade. It called for the establishment of a sentencing council to issue courts with guidelines on penalties.

The Scottish Government is considering the report and will come forward with proposals later this year.

However, speaking at a conference in Edinburgh called “Beyond McLeish: New Ideas, Lasting Solutions”, the former First Minister said attention must turn to tackling the link between alcohol and crime.

He said: “In discussions with (Kenny MacAskill, the justice secretary] prior to the commission being set up, we talked about some of the contextual issues that are maybe not the reason for crime, but the conditions. These are issues we are currently not facing up to.

“It is embarrassing to be walking through midtown Manhattan or the Bronx or Brooklyn and not seeing drunken young people in the streets, drunken young women in the streets.

“I just wondered, how do we get to a point where we start to say alcohol, drugs, substance abuse, are huge issues?”

Mr McLeish continued: “It’s not really good enough for all of us to say, ‘well alcohol is legal, how dare they introduce 21-year-old limits for access? Society has to take a wider responsibility.

“We have got to address, as the government is doing, that a wider debate in Scotland about alcohol and its implications for crime (is needed].

“If you look at the statistics, crime is generated by alcohol, on a Friday night, on a Saturday night, domestic abuse.

“It’s shocking and it’s really unacceptable.”