The Strategy for Justice in Scotland: Summary - Scottish Government

Priority 1: Reducing crime, particularly
violent and serious organised crime
Reducing crime is our first priority.
Recorded crime has already fallen
significantly but we want to go further.
Given that the root causes of crime lie
beyond the justice system, this priority
must be achieved by collaborating with
other public service partners.
In particular, we are tackling Scotland’s
high rate of violent crime and working
to disrupt and dismantle serious
organised crime.
Approach:
• Work jointly with partners in other
agencies to create innovative ways to
both prevent and reduce high risk and
vulnerable groups committing crime at
an early stage; working with children
and families is a priority.
• Take a ‘public health’ approach to
violent crime, knife crime in particular,
with a focus on prevention and early
intervention before even the first
indication of violence.
• Ensure courts have sufficient powers
and discretion to punish violent
offenders appropriately.
• Ensure those already involved in violent
crime are given help to change their
behaviour.
• Continue to support innovative
partnership approaches to violence
reduction, and the “No Knives, Better
Lives” youth programme to prevent and
deter young people from carrying and
using knives.
• Increase detection and certainty of
punishment, particularly for violent
crime.
• Apply a range of measures to reduce sex
crime and protect society from sex offenders.
• Pursue our ground-breaking, multiagency
approach to map and tackle
serious organised crime and seize
criminal assets.
• Take strong action to tackle domestic
abuse and violence against women,
including providing support to victims
from key frontline services and working
with perpetrators through our groundbreaking
Caledonian system.
10