Today we are highlighting how OLRs go against the principles of proportionality, fairness and breach Human Rights.

The Chair of the Scottish Human Right’s Commission states “OLRs raise significant Human Rights implications for people serving these sentences”. At what point will the Scottish Government acknowledge the OLR is not fit for purpose? #NOLR #SentencingReform

Lord Carloway stated ‘it is essential the OLR does not become an unjustified form of preventative detention’ adding ‘the period spent in the community will be an integral part of the sentence’. Despite this, only 24 people have been released from prison in 19 years of OLR’s

The RMAs Standards/Guidelines state ‘Research [shows] services that are humane, ethical, clinically relevant and [based on] principles of risk, need and responsivity can reduce rates of offending, while punitive approaches have little effect’. The OLR is as punitive as it gets.

The RMA states ‘assessors should be mindful that evaluating long term risk poses several challenges due to limitations in relation to reliability of future predictions’. Despite this, risk assessments are used to detain people in Scotland indeterminately #NOLR #ScotlandJustice

The UN Special Rapporteur for Torture stated in 2023, indeterminate sentences create “levels of pain or suffering beyond those inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. Yet, the Scottish Government persists in handing out the OLR #NOLR #HumanRights

Without access to rehabilitative opportunities those serving an OLRs are unable to show that they are no longer a risk to the public. Opportunities for rehabilitation must be offered to be competent within the framework of the ECHR #NOLR #HumanRights

The Vision for Justice states, young people don’t fully develop until their mid-20s and may not understand adult systems and processes, despite this, 38 OLRs have been handed out to people under 25 #NOLR #CYCJ

The implications of indeterminate sentencing in a ‘free society’ requires that extraordinary measures be justified, with strong safeguards and due process protections against excessive punishment ‘Magna Carta’ #HumanRights #NOLR

OLRs were designed to provided resource intensive evidence-based and ethical risk management. Failure to adhere to these principles may interfere with human rights, system pressure and failure (Fyfe and Gailey, 2011) #ScotJustice #NOLR

Today we are highlighting some of the basic facts about OLRs and statistics on how they have been used. Follow #NOLR for all posts