News.Scotland.Org

November, 28

It was noticed that huge number of Scottish youths are falling prey to sexual offences; all such cases are at a high, which are being reported to the Children’s Reporter. It is said that bad parenting is one of the main reason for such offences. This alarming fact came in to light after the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) released the figures showing a real shocker. It is projected that over 19000 youngsters are the victims of heinous offences, including sexual assault, bodily harm and cruelty. Such adverse change in the society has raised a serious question on the parental care of children.

SCRA reported that they are receiving many such cases which have made the figures much higher than of last year. Out of the 100,000 cases referred to SCRA, about a quarter of these children are reported to be under four-years of age. This issue has triggered a serious message for the government, to make sure they tackle this growing problem soon. The Children Minister Adam Ingram said, “every young person deserves the best possible care, the report has highlighted how many children need the support of adults, agencies, communities and government.”

It is known that children are vulnerable and they deserve proper care and guidance from their elders and parents. But it is seen that due to the lack of care and guidance to children they are becoming victims of such crimes. Even there are several schemes and plans setup to eradicate such serious crimes in children, but not up to mark. There are antisocial behaviour orders and other rehabilitation schemes to bring the youth crimes to a lower level. Though the funding on these plans has gone up, but the utilization is still a serious problem.

With such an upward trend in child offences, now this issue has taken a bigger shape and need to be sought out with proper approach. Youths are the future generation and they should be shown the right path, even the parents should take care of the children and guide them towards a bright future.

Scotland, Nov 29: Owing to the space limitation in jails the criminals including those convicted for violent crimes will be released even before their punishment period. This move was put forth by the financial secretary Kenny MacAskill as an attempt to restrict the overcrowding in Scotland’s jails that currently accommodates hundreds more prisoners than its full capacity.

This move from the financial secretary draw flak from victims’ groups and former member of the judiciary, they opined that the move will question the public faith in judiciary.

The change will allow serious criminals who are sentenced for imprisonment for the period of four years or more could be released six months earlier than normal. Those imprisoned for less than four years will be automatically released midway through their sentence.

The SNP expressed its views to extend the home detention curfew (HDC) to long term prisoners who are considered to be safe by the parole board. The move is expected to raise the number of prisoners released under the home curfew scheme to 400 as against 300 earlier.

“The measure would have to be approved by the Scottish Parliament and is expected to alleviate the problem of congestion in Scotland’s jails that are presently accommodating 1000 prisoners more than its full capacity. I am not ready to see our prisoners collapse due to overfilling. The government should have a clear vision and we have to deal this issue positively with immediate effect,” said MacAskill.

While commenting on this a spokesman of Victim Support Scotland, David Sinclair said: “We realised this as a grave problem but at the same time one thing has to be kept in mind that the deduction in punishment will lead to ruining of the public view towards judiciary and its verdicts. The public particularly the victims of crime will loose their faith in the system. The punishment should fit the crime.”

Extending the jail premises will be the correct way to solve this issue without any further controversy.