WHAT CAN WE DO TO TACKLE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE?
Tag: community safety
Toughening up community justice
New Bill will reform the community justice system in Scotland
Plans for a new community justice model, designed to create a stronger community justice system in Scotland, were published by the Scottish Government on Friday.
The Community Justice (Scotland) Bill establishes a new model for community justice which puts local delivery, partnerships and collaboration at its heart.
The Community Justice (Scotland) Bill will:
- Place responsibility for local planning and monitoring of community justice services with a defined set of local community justice partners
- Place duties on these community justice partners to engage in local strategic planning and be accountable for its success
- Develop a national strategy and a performance framework in relation to community justice
- Create a national body to provide leadership, promote innovation and provide improvement support where it is required
- Create a focus on collaboration – including the opportunity to commission, manage or deliver services nationally where appropriate
Community Safety and Legal Affairs Minister Paul Wheelhouse said: “The Scottish Government is committed to reducing re-offending and securing better outcomes for community justice services.
“Offending is a complex problem and there are well established links between persistent offending and poverty, homelessness, addiction and mental illness. Re-offending creates victims, damages communities and wastes potential.
“We want to work in partnership with organisations and communities to reduce re-offending and to deliver better outcomes for offenders and communities.
“We have engaged extensively with stakeholders in developing this model and share their view that community justice services should be person-centred and evidence-based while making the best use of resources; all of which is reflected in today’s Bill.”
The defined set of local community justice partners includes local authorities, NHS boards, Police Scotland, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, Health and Social Care Integration joint boards, Skills Development Scotland, Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and Scottish Ministers in their role as the Scottish Prison Service.
Tom Halpin, Chief Executive of SACRO said: “Sacro supports the introduction of proposals contained in the Community Justice (Scotland) Bill. This provides a strong opportunity for Scotland’s community justice services to work collaboratively and deliver reduced re-offending and safer communities.
“Working through Community Planning Partnerships, where multi-agency working supports the delivery of joined up services with strong leadership and accountability, is key to transforming the lives of people who are motivated to desist from offending.
“The lived experience of people using Sacro’s services to successfully change their life tells us this Bill is critical in building a socially just and inclusive society for all of Scotland’s communities.”
Councillor Harry McGuigan, COSLA’s Spokesperson for Community Well-being said: “COSLA will study the legislation and continue to work with Scottish Ministers to ensure that the Bill enables a truly local model with improved community justice outcomes at its core.
“Reducing reoffending continues to be a priority for local government and we are working closely with the Scottish Government to ensure a smooth transition to the new model for community justice. We have supported the redesign of community justice throughout the consultation process and we welcome the introduction of this Bill.”
Children the focus of Road Safety Week
Scottish Road Safety Week 4 – 10 May
Scottish Road Safety Week runs from 4 to 10 May, with a particular focus on keeping children safe on Scotland’s roads.
Along with regional and local events, Scottish Road Safety Week will also provide practical advice for parents, carers and schools on keeping children safer. In particular, the week will cover child pedestrians, cyclists, and safety in the back of the car.
Go to www.dontriskit.info for more information
Teach your children about Road Safety
There’s nothing more important than your children being safe and road safety is everyone’s responsibility. That’s why the Scottish Government and its partners across Scotland including local authorities, the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service, Police Scotland and many other organisations are all pulling together for the Scottish Road Safety Week (SRSW).
The SRSW runs from 4 – 10 May, aiming to raise awareness of road safety across the country but it will specifically focus on keeping children safe, while they are walking, cycling or in the car.
The number of people killed and injured on Scotland’s roads has fallen significantly in recent years. However, sadly latest figures show there were 1,062 child casualties reported. Of those 143 were seriously injured and nine died. That is nine too many.
On this website you’ll find top tips on how your children can stay safe on the roads. And if you teach them about road safety now, it will stay with them for the rest of their life.
Start making your children safer.
Local learners on a high!
Local young people short-listed for learners award
Late last year I spent time with a bright and enthusiastic group of young adults at Royston Wardieburn Community Centre to plan a piece of work. Their mission? To choose a subject of relevance to young people, research and then write an article on that subject for North Edinburgh News.
The group has now produced their article (see below) – and all their hard work is to be recognised too!
Community Learning & Development tutor Karen Riddell, who supported the group during the project, explained: “They really were a vibrant group of young people with strong opinions and it was great to see them engage with the topic and undertake the various activities related to building their skills and putting the article together.
“The group was nominated for an Edinburgh Adult Learners Achievement Award and I’m delighted to say that they have been short-listed for an award in the Young Adults Category.”
The Tomorrow’s People team will learn their fate at an event at the City Chambers on 20 May. Fingers crossed for you, guys – and here’s your article …
LEGAL HIGHS: Is It Worth It?
Local young people speak out against ‘legal highs’
We are a group of young people from Pilton who have just spent 16 weeks on the Tomorrow’s People employability programme. Part of our course helped us brush up on our literacy and critical thinking skills through a weekly CLD Practical Journalism course held at Royston Wardieburn Community Centre.
Dave Pickering, the editor at the North Edinburgh News, very kindly gave us the opportunity to write an article for his paper, so after much debate we decided to research and write about Legal Highs.
We compiled a local survey and found out that most of the young people who responded to the survey had either used Legal Highs or knew someone who had. The main reasons cited were: they were easy to get, friends were trying them, they’re cheap – at least half the price of illegal drugs, they give you a really good high, taking them gives you something to do, boredom and peer pressure.
Even although a high percentage of young people surveyed had used them without any serious long term consequences, we did find out that at least 68 people died last year as a direct result of using them, so they are not quite as harmless as some people think.
We found that their name made them quite misleading and people thought it meant they were pretty safe to use. The truth is that drugs councilors now advise their clients to stick to their heroin as legal highs are even more dangerous, burning the skin as it is injected and causing blistering and serious infection.
Most people who completed the questionnaire had also tried illegal drugs and strongly felt that these were safer than Legal highs. As a group, we definitely agreed with that.
We also feel that the government are failing to make drug taking safer. No matter what you might feel about drugs, a lot of people from literally all walks of life use them and are going to continue to do so. David Cameron dodges the issue for fear of losing votes and insists that ‘What is in place is working’ despite the fact that over 2500 people died from drugs-related causes last year in the UK.
Is it not time to follow Portugal and make drugs a health issue rather than a criminal one so that people are offered more protection? In Portugal they found that de-criminalising it didn’t bring about any increase in the level of drug use by people and also that millions was saved on the essentially ineffectual enforcement of drug laws.
Across Europe clubs have drug-testing facilities so that people can test substances before they take them – surely that must offer people more protection than kidding on that ‘what is in place is working’!
A recent Home Office report that we looked at said that having tough drugs laws didn’t make any difference to the level of drug use but Home Secretary Teresa May had this part of the report removed and it was only found out about when Norman Baker revealed the findings after he resigned! This just goes to show that governments make useless drug laws to kid on they are in control of the problem when they’re really just doing it as a vote catcher.
Present policy bears no relation to the reality of people’s recreational drug use and it’s time for the government to introduce some new policies to protect its citizens and not put their own vote-catching first.
We need much better drug education to help us keep ourselves safe, and the obvious place for this to take place is in schools. We felt strongly that a peer to peer support programme in schools would help young people make informed choices about drug use and help keep them safer.
Our research found that young people felt there needed to be far more opportunities for young people in the work-place and much better affordable or subsidised recreational facilities to offer them the chance to experience other kinds of ‘legal highs’, their own ‘natural highs’ like ski-ing, skating, abseiling, snow-boarding, canoeing, dirt-biking, go-karting etc. Risk-taking is part of brain-development for young people and we need to offer them the opportunity to explore this in a safer environment.
Drugs become a problem when there is little else in the drug users lives. We found out that in an experiment, mice which were separated from other mice kept going back to drink the drug-laced water whereas mice that lived in groups didn’t. The experiment showed that lack of strong emotional bonds in your life can drive you to bond with legal highs or drugs instead.
They say it takes a community to bring up a child so that’s why it’s very important for us to work together to stop the reckless experimentation that can lead to addiction, to value the young people of Pilton and provide them with the support they need to keep their use of drugs and alcohol to an acceptable level and help them realise their potential.
It seems to us that one of the worst thing about legal highs is the hypocrisy of supposedly ‘respectable’ shop-keepers who are prepared to stock them in the full knowledge that people, especially young people, buy them to consume them. We feel a local campaign should be set up to stop these shops from selling them.
Good websites:
(1)Anyone’s Child; Families for Safer Drug Control – www.anyoneschild.org
(2) Release.org
Community Safety on Drylaw agenda
North Neighbourhood Community Safety manager Ruth Stanley will attend next week’s meeting of Drylaw Telford Community Council.
The meeting will take place on Wednesday 29 April at 7pm in Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre. All welcome.
Water Safety Week
SFRS campaign highlights open water dangers
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) has joined with fire and rescue services across the UK in supporting Drowning Prevention and Water Safety Week 2015, which takes place from 13-19 April.
The campaign is focusing on raising awareness of the issue of Cold Water Shock, which causes a number of fatalities every year as young people – even those who are strong swimmers – are unaware of the effect that it can have on their ability to swim in open water.
Even on a warm day, the temperature of the water in a reservoir, quarry or lake can remain very cold and the shock of cold water creates a physical response that can make it more difficult to swim, and can even cause death.
CFOA’s Water Safety Lead, Dawn Whittaker, warned: “While reservoirs, lakes, rivers and other inland water may look safe and inviting, particularly on a warm day, there are hidden dangers below the surface that could make you ill, hurt you, and – at worst – could kill you.
“Cold Water Shock is a physical response that can not only affect your breathing, but will reduce your muscle ability and can even lead to a heart attack. Moving water, such as rivers, may look calm but may have strong currents below the surface which can carry even strong swimmers into danger. And, of course, from out of the water, or above, you may not be able to see dangerous obstructions such as large rocks or dead branches that can cause you injury.
“You may also want to consider the fact that open water is untreated, and may be polluted with bacteria and algae that can give you stomach upsets, or even with organisms that can cause a number of nasty illnesses including Weil’s Disease, Trachoma and Whipworm
The water safety messages that the fire and rescue service will be delivering will, it is hoped, also raise awareness of and support for the great campaigns that the RLSS, RNLI and ASA will be running later in 2015 – the RLSS’ Drowning Prevention Week from 20-28 June, the RNLI’s Respect the Water campaign in July and the joint RNLI/ASA Swim Safe swimming lessons and beach safety advice ‘roadshow’ in July and August.
Wardieburn stabbings: one victim ‘critically ill’
‘This was an appalling attack’ – DCI Stuart Houston
Police in Edinburgh are appealing for witnesses following the attempted murder of two men in Wardieburn. The incident took place at around 6pm on Wednesday evening in Wardieburn Place West. The area was busy at the time and police are hopeful that potential witnesses will come forward.
The men had travelled down from the Aberdeen area to buy a car, but on arrival they were attacked and stabbed after being lured into a common stair by two men. The suspects, who may also have robbed their victims, made off, possibly via the large grass area at the rear of the block.
Both victims were left with serious injuries and one – a 43-year-old man – is in a critical condition.
Officers are eager to speak to any witnesses who may have seen the two suspects.
The first suspect is described as a white man aged 17-19 years old, with a local accent. He has light coloured short hair which is shaved at the sides and was wearing a light coloured sky blue hooded sweatshirt and grey jogging bottoms.
The second suspect is a white man in his mid-twenties with a stocky build. He was wearing a striped top.
Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Houston said: “This was an appalling attack on two men who came to the address in good faith. This attack happened in daylight and we believe there may be a number of witnesses who may have seen the suspects in the area. Anyone with information that can help with our enquiries is urged to contact police immediately.”
Those with information can contact Police Scotland on 101 or anonymously through Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Two in hospital following Wardieburn knife attack
Two men stabbed in Wardieburn in broad daylight
Two men are being treated in hospital following a knife attack in Wardieburn Place yesterday. The incident happened in broad daylight at around 6pm.
An investigation is underway to establish whether a Vauxhall Astra abandoned at the scene was involved in the incident.
A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: “Police in Edinburgh responded to a report of a serious assault on two men in the Wardieburn/Pilton area of the city around 6pm on Wednesday. Enquiries are ongoing into the full circumstances of this incident.”
If you have any information about the incident call Police Scotland on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Telford rapist jailed for five years
A man was sentenced to five years imprisonment yesterday at Edinburgh High Court after being found guilty of rape. Mike Okah (26) was found guilty of the rape of a woman at a flat in Telford Grove, Edinburgh on July 19 last year.
Despite Okah’s denial of his guilt and his attempts to pervert the course of justice, he was arrested and charged following an investigation Police Scotland’s Rape Investigation Unit, based in Edinburgh.
Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Chief Inspector Alwyn Bell said: “I would like to acknowledge the courage of the victim throughout this investigation. This was a particularly violent incident and Okah refused to acknowledge his guilt, going to great lengths to attempt to cover up his crime.
“Tackling sexual crime is a priority for Police Scotland. The National Rape Taskforce and rape investigation units across Scotland are victim focused and we work with partners to ensure that people receive the support they need, when they need it. We continue to encourage anyone subjected to any crime of a sexual nature to contact Police Scotland.”
Police Scotland launches Most Wanted website
Police Scotland has launched a dedicated section of their website where the public can help officers to trace the “Most Wanted”.
From today (Friday 3 April), the public can click onto the most wanted page of the website and find the faces of those individuals officers across the country want to trace.
Since the launch of Police Scotland two years ago, the Fugitive Unit has arrested 215 wanted individuals, 183 of those arrested have come from requests from law enforcement agencies all across the world to trace those who were in Scotland. Police Scotland has been assisted by forces world wide in bringing back 32 people to face justice here in Scotland following arrest warrants issued by the Crown Office.
The Most Wanted section of the website will be updated when those who are evading capture are brought to justice and will be updated to show details of anyone who may be wanted.
The faces on the most wanted website are:
Derek Ferguson: Wanted for the murder of Thomas Cameron in 2007.
Israr Ali: Wanted for the murder of Waqar Shar in 2010.
Rezgar Zengana: Convicted of Rape in 2006 and failed to appear for sentencing.
Jonathan Kelly: Wanted for attempting to defeat the ends of justice in 2014.
Dariusz Kazmierczak: Wanted in Poland for multiple frauds.
Martin Banis – Wanted for fraud , has been convicted and sentenced to six years imprisonment.
Luis Miguel De Barros Silva –Wanted for to Section 39(1) of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 (Stalking offences).
Speaking ahead of the launch of the website, Detective Inspector David Wilson from the Fugitive Unit said:
“One of the main benefits of the most wanted section of the Police Scotland website is that you can log on across the world and look at the faces of those we need to trace. Criminals do not respect borders and we know that they need help from others in order to continue to evade justice. Like everyone else, they need somewhere to live and access to money.
“I would ask the public to look at the faces and the most wanted website and if they have any information about those whose faces appear to contact Police on 101. Or if they have any information they wish to pass anonymously they can contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.”
You can access the Most Wanted section here.