Policy Officer, Community Justice
Our new Community Justice Outcomes Improvement Plan (CJOIP) – refreshed for 2023-28 – sets out the strategy for our partnership over the next 5 years. The Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan is a requirement of the Community Justice (Scotland) Act 2016.
The Act focuses on preventing and reducing ‘further offending’ and partners working together to support people who have committed offences from the point of arrest, through prosecution and disposal (both community and custody) and supporting reintegration into the community. Our partnership therefore focuses on working together to improve outcomes for people who are in contact with the justice system, reducing subsequent reoffending – which will reduce crime in the city – making it safer for everyone.
The National Strategy for Community Justice states that community Justice:
“…is principally about organisations working together to ensure that people who have offended address the underlying causes of their behaviour, and pay back to the community where appropriate. It aims to encourage rehabilitation, reduce reoffending, and protect the public, leading to fewer victims and safer communities.”
You can read the National Strategy in full by CLICKING ON THE PICTURE LINK below or SCANNING THE QR CODE
As we work using a partnership approach, we carried out a programme of engagement and consultation over the course of 2022 and before, to ensure our Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan was inclusive of the views of our partners and communities across Glasgow. This included an event held at the Centre for Contemporary Arts to launch the Shared Sentences Films – you can read more about these in another article ‘Media Education – Creatively Engaging the Community in Conversations about Community Justice’ – where we were also able to engage people in discussions around what mattered to them. Participants included those involved in justice services, either through their own experience, their work, studies or the communities they live in.
You can CLICK ON THE PICTURE LINK below which will take you to film recording of the event held at the Centre for Contemporary Arts.
Our participation statement outlines how we engaged with all of our partners to talk with people, listen and empower them to influence and shape our plans and actions across all priority areas. In preparing and informing our Community Justice Outcomes Improvement Plan, we carried out a number of specific engagement activities to maximise participation in this process. These included:
- Discussion at our Community Justice Glasgow Partnership.
- Dedicated sessions for partners to come together in small groups to work through the vision, themes, direction and overall structure of our Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan.
- Information sessions with our local Elected Members.
- An information session with the local Third Sector Interface with additional individual meetings for organisations who could not attend.
- An in-person event which included specific workshops to discuss our priorities with a wider audience including staff, volunteers and service users of justice services in the city, students currently studying justice related courses, front-line representatives from statutory partner organisations and others with an interest in this area.
- Discussion on the proposed focus, themes and principles also took place across our wider working groups and in meetings with other partnerships in the city, including the Alcohol and Drug Partnership, the Glasgow Violence Against Women Partnership, various Health and Social Care Partnership groups including the Homelessness Management Team.
- An early draft of the Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan was circulated to relevant Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership staff to allow direct input from frontline staff.
- Throughout 2022-23 we regularly tweeted about renewing our Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan and provided the opportunity for anyone to get in touch and share.
- Regular participation in Glasgow’s Community Council development sessions in the city.
- Work was also carried out to identify the key themes across all of our partner organisations from their current high-level strategies.
Through this participation and the testing of options with our partners, we arrived at a revised Vision Statement, which reflected the aim of our partnership with clarity and simplicity. Our Vision is:
‘Reduce Reoffending and the use of custody to the benefit of all Glasgow citizens’
Our engagement work with partners also highlighted the values that our partnership were keen to reflect in our plan:
The focus of our Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan was also informed by partners, taking into account direct feedback from our engagement sessions, and also reflecting on the strategic direction of our partners across Glasgow and nationally.
This 5-year plan for Community Justice in Glasgow sets the direction for our partnership. Our work will be informed by this, a Community Justice Outcome Delivery Plan that is currently in development and the 4 existing Community Improvement Plans:
- Diversion from Prosecution (Adult)
- Presumption Against Short-term Sentence
- Robust Alternatives to Remand
- Throughcare (from Prison)
We will continue to report on our performance annually and augment this strategy with practical action through our day-to-day work.