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Scottish executive plans to change parole arrangements for sex offenders will create more work for criminal justice social workers, writes Derren Hayes.

Under current sentencing rules, people convicted of a sexual offence who receive a sentence of less than four years are given automatic unconditional release after serving half their sentence. But the executive wants to end this, so offenders are released on licence under social work supervision.

The executive has proposed the changes in a report to the Sentencing Commission. Depending on its response, the changes could be introduced by the end of the year.

The report acknowledges that such a change would increase the burden on social workers with them having to manage an estimated extra 50 to 75 cases at any one time. The executive estimates this would be an increase of between five and 10 in each prison population because 25 per cent of offenders released would be recalled to custody for breach of licence conditions. 

An alternative proposal the executive is considering is to change the definition of long-term sentences, so that offenders jailed for longer than three years would be classed as such and lose their automatic right for half sentence release.

The move comes just a week after justice minister Cathy Jamieson asked local authority chief executives and prison and police chiefs to carry out an audit of supervision arrangements for all medium and high risk sex offenders in their areas following the James Campbell case.

Campbell abused a two-year-old girl two months after his release from prison on an extended sentence for the attempted rape of a 91-year-old woman. A report into the case by the Social Work Inspection Agency found North Lanarkshire Council had failed to mitigate the risk of Campbell re-offending.