A safer Scotland

Scots need to have confidence that when they call the police they will come and crimes will be investigated. Scottish Labour is determined to restore the trust between the police and local people with visible community policing that reduces local crime. We will:

• Return police officers back to the frontline in communities, cutting back on the time officers spend waiting to give evidence in an outdated court system and reducing hours spent on non-police work, like escorting mental health patients in crisis, with our new mental health emergency service.

• Give every neighbourhood a named community and crime prevention officer, to work across council wards responding to crime, gathering intelligence and building relationships with retailers, schools and community groups to reduce offending in high crime areas.

• Make the police accountable to local people, restoring the statutory obligation for local police divisions to consult on local policing plans and within the first 100 days of government set out new Strategic Policing Priorities that focus on community policing.

• Creating a new trauma support service for officers, to properly look after those who keep us safe, helping officers deal with the pressures of the job and reducing sickness levels.

• Driving technological improvements across the force, finishing the rollout of body-worn cameras, ensuring fingerprints are recorded at time of arrest for UK-wide collaboration and fast-tracking work on the digitisation of evidence across the justice system.

Antisocial behaviour and shoplifting undermine the security of our towns and make neighbourhoods feel less safe. The scale of the drugs deaths scandal devastates families and communities while knife crime is a scourge on our society, taking the lives of too many young people. Alongside our plans to boost community policing, Scottish Labour will get a grip on the rising tide of crime in our communities by:

• Legislating for tougher regulation on the sale of all knives, to prevent shoplifting of kitchen knives with enhanced rules on security tagging, storage in locked cabinets and a review of sale of domestic knives to under-16s.

• Removing free bus passes from those who carry out antisocial behaviour, punishing those who abuse transport staff and revoking the right to free travel from individuals who threaten community safety.

• Crushing illegal e-bikes, using drone technology to trace unlicensed bikes for seizure, granting the police powers to issue warnings and fines for dangerous use of motorised and e-bikes in pedestrian and residential areas, and running an awareness campaign about illegal bikes in Scotland to promote responsible ownership.

• Prosecuting shoplifting, expanding the remit of the Retail Crime taskforce beyond the central belt. Crime prevention officers will support better coordination between businesses in high crime areas and work with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to ensure those who do not pay fiscal fines face court action.

• Cracking down on drug dealing, strengthening crossborder police work to break supply lines, properly resourcing Police Scotland’s organised crime teams to disrupt gang operations and using technology to prevent supply into prisons.

• Protecting postal workers and the public from dangerous dogs, enhancing regulation and ensuring owners are held to account for dog bites and attacks.

• Including pyrotechnics football banning orders closing a gap in the law and ensuring everyone can enjoy games without disorder.

The SNP’s broken justice system has seen waves of prisoners released early, unchecked cycles of reoffending and victims waiting years for justice. Scotland deserves a government that will deliver robust responses to crime, not dangerous sticking plasters. Scottish Labour will keep communities safe and ensure criminals face consequences for breaking the law by:

• Increasing the value of Antisocial Behavioural Fines, meaning those who make communities feel less safe can face fines of up to £500.

• Legislating to protect workers from assault, bringing in stronger sentences for those who attack people in the course of their work.

• Reviewing Community Payback Orders, to make them more robust with tougher unpaid work requirements and stricter monitoring so that judges have confidence in them as a non-custodial sentence.

• Prioritising prison capacity for convicted criminals, speeding up court scheduling for remand prisoners, delivering value for public money and curbing the need for early release of dangerous offenders.

• Improving transparency over Parole Board decisions, so its decision-making processes can be clearly communicated to victims and ensuring that it has the remit and powers needed to keep communities safe.

• Keeping women’s prisons for women, instructing the Scottish Prison Service to remove all biologically male prisoners from women’s prisons within days of the election.

Imprisoning dangerous criminals is the first step to protecting the public from harm but to truly build safe communities, more is required to break the cycle of reoffending. Repeat offending retraumatises victims, damages community resilience and costs the public purse millions. Scottish Labour will act to prevent reoffending by:

• Updating bail monitoring technology, rolling out GPS devices to improve monitoring capability so we can protect victims and make bail arrangements safer for the public.

• Prioritising mental health and rehabilitation services in prisons, to help individuals to access healthcare and the support needed to address addiction issues while in custody.

• Modernising data collection across the justice system, ensuring that prisoner journeys can be properly tracked so that sentencing decisions and interventions can be targeted and evidence driven.

• Implementing harm prevention plans for those leaving prisons, supporting people to successfully reintegrate into society by ensuring they have a safe place to live and are registered with a doctor.

The SNP has been asleep at the wheel while youth violence has reached crisis point. Our young people are Scotland’s future and they deserve a justice system that keeps them safe and sets them up for a life of success, free from crime. Scottish Labour will tackle youth violence in our streets by:

• Scrapping the sentencing guidelines for under25s, so that sentences are fair and no one escapes justice because of their age. New guidance will ensure there is clarity and consistency so sentencing also reflects the gravity of the crime committed.

• Criminalising the exploitation of children, holding to account those who seek to take advantage of young people to further criminal operations such as the supply of drugs.

• Establishing Youth Remediation Orders, as new, tough community sentences targeted at young people who breach the law. These will be an alternative to prosecution and involve unpaid work to benefit communities, which can also be credited as work experience to offer a route out of crime.

• Restoring the Cashback for Communities Youth Work Fund, with £1m dedicated to funding local approaches to youth work and crime prevention in neighbourhoods with high crime rates.

• Maintaining funding for the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit over the lifetime of the Parliament so that its important work on violence prevention is not undermined by cuts.

Domestic abuse is still prolific in our society, with men overwhelmingly the perpetrators. Misogynistic attitudes and violence are also on the rise, often fuelled by online discourse that is targeted at young men. Scottish Labour is determined to protect women and girls in Scotland by:

• Establishing a Misogyny Reduction Unit, based within Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit and treating violence against women and girls as an issue of public health with research and evidence-based interventions

• Closing legal loopholes around sexual deepfakes, ensuring the law criminalises the non-consensual creation of images, as well as the sharing of them.

• Preventing bail for those with histories of violence to women, tightening bail laws so those with a history of domestic abuse and violence cannot be bailed to their current or previous partner’s address

• Boosting uptake of the Equally Safe Programme in schools, with a graded participation award so that young people and parents can see the work that schools are doing to counter the impact of online misogyny and abusive behaviour.

• Continue funding for Rape Crisis and Women’s Aid, ensuring resources are delivered to local services which support victims around the country.

Too often Scotland’s justice system fails the very people it is there to protect. To truly deliver justice the system needs to be properly designed to support those harmed by crime. Scottish Labour will ensure all victims are respected and supported by:

• Creating a specialist victims’ support team, which can coordinate between justice agencies and act as a single point of contact for victims of crime to answer questions in a trauma informed way

• Modernising the victims’ notification scheme and communications, working towards the creation of a digital portal where victims can access updates and information about the progress of their case through the justice system and control the notifications they are given.

• Delivering a national Bairns Hoose model, so child victims or witnesses of violence can engage with the justice system and recovery services in child-friendly environments.

• Removing parental rights of child sex offenders, meaning parents convicted of serious sexual offences against children can no longer make decisions in their child’s life.

• Progressing the grooming gangs’ inquiry, ensuring lessons are learned on how to protect victims of group-based sexual exploitation.

The delays and inefficiencies that characterise Scotland’s justice system prolong the trauma of victims and exacerbate the crisis in our prisons, all while those reliant on legal aid struggle to access the expert advice they need. A well-functioning justice system should deliver for all, not just those who have wealth or connections. Scottish Labour will improve access to justice by:

• Modernising the court system to reduce delays, fast-tracking the plans to digitise the sharing of evidence and carrying out a productivity review of scheduling in the High Court and Appeal Court, learning from the Summary Case Management initiative.

• Funding 40 legal aid traineeships annually, to provide a pipeline of talent in the workforce and improve access to legal aid solicitors, particularly in underserved areas across the country.

• Expanding pilots for independent legal representation for victims of serious sexual crime, ensuring that victims are fairly advised and represented in considerations regarding the disclosure of historical evidence.

• Agreeing on a sustainable approach to legal aid, ensuring that funding protects access to legal services across the country.