Administration & Partnership Support Officer, community Justice Glasgow
The Whos, whats, wheres, whens and whys? – What is Community Justice? – What does it do? – Who is it?
These are just some of the questions that our team are often asked. This article will provide an easy guide to the essential things you need to know about Community Justice Glasgow based on the things we are most frequently asked.
Top tip – Have a read at some of the articles across this Annual Report, it will give you a deeper knowledge and understanding of what we do and how. If you have any other questions just GET IN TOUCH:
Question
Answer
1. Who are Community Justice Glasgow (CJG)?
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.”
The Community Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 focuses on preventing and reducing ‘further offending’ and partners work together to support people who have committed offences from the point of arrest, through prosecution and disposal (both community and in prison), and support 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.
Community Justice Glasgow (CJG) was established in 2017 to co-ordinate and deliver the arrangements of the Act. Our team is the central point to a range of partners who work together to address the underlying and surrounding issues of offending and involvement in the justice system, and to ultimately reduce reoffending in Glasgow.
2. How………do you reduce re-offending?
Fundamental to the approach is co-ordinated local planning and delivery of services on a partnership basis.
The Community Justice Glasgow Team works across a number of priorities agreed by a range of stakeholders with an interest in Community Justice. These priorities are set out in our Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan and as a partnership. Over the next 5 years (2023-28) we will focus on:
• Women;
• Young People;
• Victims;
• Families;
• Those with equalities protected characteristics; and
• Those experiencing inequality and/or poverty.
We also have agreed 4 specific improvement plan that will drive out work:
- Prison throughcare
- Adult diversion from prosecution
- Bail support
- Supporting the Presumption Against Short Sentences
We bring together the right partners and people with lived experience of the justice system at each of the touch points – early intervention (at risk), arrested, sentenced and reintegration from a community or prison sentence – to collaboratively plan and deliver the right services at the right time to the right people.
We act as mechanism through which partners can share information across services and get in touch with wider audiences. We work together to identify gaps in services and agree how our work can be better delivered.
3. Who…..has oversight?
Locally the team sits within Chief Executive’s Department of Glasgow City Council.
Our governance arrangements are via Glasgow Community Planning Partnership. We also work closely with other relevant structures, and so align with, rather than report to, the Glasgow City Integration Joint Board, and the local Police and Fire Scrutiny arrangements.
We also expect effective two-way communication with all of our partnership members. Each member organisation is responsible for sharing information and developments from our partnership within their own organisation, and providing organisational feedback, and representation from their organisation (or sector) to effectively communicate relevant information to our partnership.
The 2016 Act also established a new national body, Community Justice Scotland (CJS) to provide an independent professional assurance to Scottish Ministers on the collective achievement of community justice outcomes, and to work towards developing a hub for community justice innovation, learning and development.
4. Who…….are your partners?
We are a partnership of the following statutory partners named in the Act alongside local third sector representatives:
Statutory Partners:
- Glasgow City Council;
- Victim Support Scotland;
- Scottish Courts & Tribunals Service;
- Police Scotland;
- Skills Development Scotland;
- NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde – Glasgow City Integration Joint Board; .
- Scottish Prison Service;
- Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service;
- Scottish Fire & Rescue Service;
Third Sector partners such as:
- Glasgow Third Sector Forum (Part of our third Sector interface)
- Parkhead Citizen’s Advice Bureau;
- Glasgow Council on Alcohol;
- Includem;
- Action for Children – and many more.
Our partners have a statutory requirement to work in partnership across our local authority area to reduce reoffending. Aim 4 of the National Strategy for Community Justice, to Strengthen the leadership, engagement, and partnership working of local and national community justice partners, states:
“It is necessary for community justice partners to work together to adopt a strategic approach to planning and delivering improved outcomes, and lasting change for individuals and communities.”
You can read more about our partners in the Article ‘Our Partners’
5. Where……do we do our work?
The Community Justice Glasgow team itself is based within the Eastgate building at 727 London Road Glasgow, G40 3AQ. All partners will have their own work bases across the city.
As a Partnership our work is delivered in many venues and in many ways, this can include for example Community Engagement Events, in local community halls and venues, awareness raising events online, information events to Community Council Development Days, Elected Members briefings in City Chambers, knowledge and understanding events in Schools and Universities.
During the Covid 19 pandemic our team, and indeed all partners, had to adapt very quickly to providing services and maintain connections in an online format to ensure clients’ needs were met. This has provided a new way of working and has again meant there is a wider reach for some of the services delivered. There are of course challenges to virtual services, such as digital exclusion, which is another area our team is working to address with partners.
6. When…….do we deliver our objectives?
The easy answer to this is all day, every day.
Across the Partnership services are being delivered to Community Justice clients from a range of services such as Prison Throughcare, Criminal Justice Services, Police Scotland’s Community Justice Hub, Peer Mentoring Initiatives, Victim Support Panels, Community Payback Services, to name but a few.
We Chair and administer a range of core meetings to cover all themes of our work, which again are hosted across the offices of our partners throughout Glasgow.
In terms of our team’s day to day work we focus on the delivery of actions arising from the Community Justice Outcomes Improvement Plan which was revised over 2022 and refreshed to cover 2023-2028.
7. Why…do we do what we do?
This is probably the broadest question we get asked and one that covers the overall ethos of the CJG Partnership. It is most simply explained in our vision statement – as agreed by our partners and stakeholders – that we want to:
“Reduce reoffending and the use of custody to the benefit of all Glasgow citizens.’’