Getting tough on petty crime

In her first interview since she was chosen on Thursday to replace Lord Boyd, QC, as Scotland's top prosecutor, Ms Angiolini told The Scotsman she would bring prosecutors closer to people living in communities blighted by anti-social behaviour who, she acknowledged, have lost confidence in the criminal justice system.

She said: "You cannot devise what is in the public interest in the cosy cocoon of an office. You need to be out there, need to be exposed to the communities who are actually suffering.

"There is nothing more instrumental for a prosecutor - who may consider murder as the most serious case which requires very close consideration and urinating up someone's close as at the minor end - to actually go into that close and see what it's like, to live with the smells, with the fact when you have kept a nice garden box someone is using it to dump empty cans.

"That type of anti-social behaviour and quality-of-life crime is what really corrodes the confidence of many communities and makes life utterly unbearable.

"What we need to do now is have a summary justice that is problem-solving in its approach. That has already started with youth courts, domestic courts, drugs courts, but we need to look at how we can make the community feel the current criminal justice system is there to serve them and is responsive to them.

"While the criminal justice system must be independent, that does not mean it has to be isolated. Independence which requires isolation is a very immature view of independence."

Her commitment to tackling anti-social behaviour will be welcomed by Jack McConnell, the First Minister, and Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, who have come under fire for failing to meet targets to reduce the number of persistent young offenders.

In 2005-6, the number of persistent young offenders recorded was 1,338 - up 10 per cent on the previous year's figure of 1,260 and 16 per cent higher than the 1,201 in 2003-4.

Ministers have repeatedly accused councils of not imposing enough anti-social behaviour orders on serious troublemakers. Since 2004, six dispersal orders, banning groups from gathering in certain areas, have been issued and last year 169 ASBOs were applied.

Ms Angiolini, who has still to be formally sworn in as Lord Advocate, said major reforms to speed up justice would free the hand of prosecutors to target persistent offenders causing the bulk of anti-social behaviour.

Under the new Criminal Proceedings Bill, the maximum fine fiscals can impose on offenders will be raised from 100 to 500. New compensation orders will also be introduced, allowing fiscals to require a minor offender to pay compensation of up to 5,000 to their victim without the case coming to court.

These measures, she said, will "allow prosecutors to be much more creative" and allow for the "court's energies to be targeted on the persistent offender, the one-man crime wave, or one-woman crime wave, who we know have disproportionate effect on the local community".

The fines would also enable those who "take a tentative step into criminality" to face justice more quickly.