SCOTTISH Government plans to curb the use of short-term jail sentences will allow hundreds of knife-wielding criminals to roam the streets unhindered, Labour warned yesterday.
Iain Gray, the Scottish Labour leader, said the vast majority of knife-crime offenders were given short-term jail sentences so, by getting rid of these sentences, Alex Salmond would allow 850 criminals to remain at large, free to carry knives and to
use them.
The First Minister responded by arguing that the SNP had put "record numbers" of police officers on Scotland's streets and insisted that the changes proposed for Scotland's sentencing structure would jail more serious offenders than was the case at present.
The clash over knife crime took place during First Minister's Questions, ahead of a knife-crime summit in the Scottish Parliament today.
That debate, organised by the public petitions committee, will involve police, young people, health workers and politicians.
It follows a campaign by John Muir, whose son Damian was murdered in Greenock in 2007, for automatic prison sentences for those caught carrying knives.
Mr Gray told MSPs the summit was a response to the 15,000 people who signed a petition organised by Mr Muir.
The Labour leader said 81 per cent of knife criminals who went to prison received sentences of six months or less.
"But the First Minister wants to abolish sentences of six months or less.
"That will leave around 850 convicted knife criminals every year on our streets – every high street in this country, free to carry, free to cut and potentially free to kill. Is that really the First Minister's message to the victims of knife crime?"
Mr Salmond said: "My message to victims of crime is that this government has put record numbers of police on to the streets to make sure our communities are safe."
The Sentencing Commission was designed to tackle public criticism of the length of some sentences.
Those committing violence should get long sentences, while the "flotsam and jetsam" of society should not be serving short prison terms, he said.
"That is exactly the move forward that this government is making in the justice system," Mr Salmond added.
Judge pleads for end to Scots blade cultureA JUDGE condemned Scotland's knife culture yesterday, saying: "It has to stop."
Lady Smith criticised those who carry blades as she jailed Raymond Clarkson, who stabbed a teenager four times, leaving him scarred for life.
At the High Court in Glasgow Clarkson, 22, who has a previous conviction for carrying a knife, admitted assaulting 18-year-old Ramsay MacVicar to the danger of his life in Dumbarton Road, Glasgow, on 20 September last year.
Sentencing Clarkson to 47 months in jail, Lady Smith said: "Your victim Ramsay MacVicar had every right to think he could return home that night uninjured, but it didn't happen.
"You stabbed him not just once, but four times. The knife wound to his back passed near major blood vessels.
"Have you thought about what would have happened if the knife had been at a slightly different angle? Mr MacVicar could have died. There is a likelihood you would have been facing a murder charge.
"You got involved in this by carrying a knife and not for the first time. You had been at court less than a month before this incident," Lady Smith told him.
"You simply cannot go around carrying knives. It's dangerous.
"Your victim has been left scarred and daily he will have a reminder of what happened to him because of you behaving in a vicious, cowardly fashion.
"I wonder what was going through your mind and I have to conclude nothing was going through your mind.
"Every time someone like you carries a knife it encourages others to carry knives. It has to stop."
Lady Smith told Clarkson that, but for his early plea of guilty, he would have been jailed for six years.
Mr MacVicar suffered a collapsed lung, a fractured bone and a fractured rib.
Prosecutor Paul Kearney said: "Medical opinion is of the view that a fair amount of force would have been required to inflict all four stab wounds.
"The injuries were potentially life-threatening."
The full article contains 705 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
