SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit
Press Release: 16/09/03

Scottish Socialist Party Justice Spokesperson Colin Fox MSP tonight reacted to the Apex Lecture of First Minister Jack McConnell on justice issues.
“The heavily hyped and spun speech contained nothing more than rehashed platitudes with no evidence of any kind of new thinking on behalf of the First Minister
“Jack McConnell is regurgitating the right wing Thatcherite law and order agenda of the 1980’s; he is Scotland’s very own Norman Tebbit.
“While the Scottish Socialist Party had a manifesto commitment to reforming the judiciary in our Holyrood election manifesto, Labour had nothing to say.”
On sentencing policy Colin Fox said;
“Criminologists the world over agree that there is no evidence that increasing sentences has any kind of deterrent effect, all it does is fill up the prisons.
“Locking people up does not prevent crime, it is as simple as that.
“In the United States, they lock up 5 times as many people per head of population as we do in Scotland, they use the electric chair to execute criminals and yet the United States is the most violent society on earth.
“What people in the communities that we represent want more than anything else is a solution that addresses offending behaviour, filling up the jails does not do that.
“Everyone is aware of the rampant inconsistencies in sentencing policy that have to be addressed in Scotland. There have been big increases in violent crime, serious assaults and rape and yet the jails are full of people who have committed crimes of poverty, unable to pay fines or for not having a television licence”.
“Extraordinarily, the First Minister claimed that there could not be a link between crime and poverty because the Scottish Executive had solved the problem of poverty and yet there was still an issue with serious levels of crime.
“For the First Ministers information, government statistics show that poverty in Scotland under New Labour is increasing with 1 in 3 of our children living in poverty.”
“Poverty does not excuse crime but the link is proven.”