Building a Scotland where safety, dignity and community thrive
Scotland can build a justice system rooted in care, healing & prevention.
We envision a Scotland where communities are safe because inequality has been dismantled, where harms are addressed at their roots, and where the climate and nature crises are treated as justice emergencies.
The Scottish Greens will place prevention, de-escalation, youth work, and trauma-informed practice at the heart of our approach to justice. We will reduce the prison population by investing in community justice, addressing trauma, tackling inequality, and ensuring every sentence has a clear purpose.
Ending gender based violence is a mission for all of society, but it starts with our criminal justice system. Recognising misogyny in Scots law, and funding violence prevention services in local councils, schools and community organisations, will help us end violence against women and girls for good.
Our justice system must be accessible to everyone. Too many people are denied access to legal assistance because there are no solicitors available willing to take on legal aid or pro bono work. Tackling this requires sustained investment, collaboration across the system including training and support for legal aid providers, and a reversal of the erosion to legal aid that has happened over the last decade.
A Scotland built on care and prevention is safer, happier Scotland for all. Reversing the chronic underfunding of services that actually prevent crime - housing, youth work, mental health, addiction services, education and community support - will help us transform the justice system from the ground up, and improve life for all.
- Introduce a Misogyny and Criminal Justice Bill, to tackle misogynistic harassment, incitement and abuse, including online.
- Decriminalise sex work to ensure sex workers are legally protected from exploitation, trafficking and violence and have improved access to support and healthcare.
- Enable groups and third sector organisations to raise public interest and human rights cases.
- Ensure that consumers are protected from exploitation by Third Party Litigation Funding providers.
- Defend the right to protest by developing a new National Protest Rights Code, which ensures peaceful climate activists, trade unionists and community protestors are not criminalised, but empowers action to be taken quickly against those inciting hate or violence against protected groups.
- Undertake a citizens’ assembly to develop proposals to reform our justice system, including the transformation of our police and prison services in line with our principles of rights-based and prevention-focused public services.
Reforming legal aid
- Restore and expand access to justice with the introduction of a Legal Aid Reform Bill that promotes a mixed model, supports early intervention and prevention, reverses legal aid erosion and secures legal aid provision across the country, simplifies tribunal and judicial processes, and provides person-centred support and support for community legal advice services in line with the Just Law/JustRight model.
- Increase the financial eligibility thresholds for Legal Aid Advice and Assistance, uprating all thresholds in line with inflation, and remove means testing for Legal Aid for people experiencing domestic violence and those at risk of street homelessness.
- Expand access to legal aid and advice, independent advocacy and legal representation for survivors of rape, domestic abuse, trafficking, child abuse, and violent crimes.
- Overhaul the legal aid payment structure to ensure the profession remains viable and accessible.
- Ensure long-term, inflation-proof funding for rape crisis centres, women’s refuges, BME-led services, LGBT+ survivor support and disabled women’s organisations, ensuring that independent legal advice, advocacy and representation are available to those who need them.
Prisons
- Expand the presumption against short prison sentences, for non-violent offenders in particular, instead increasing funding for rehabilitative alternatives to custody, and fully implement Housing First for people leaving prison to prevent homelessness and reoffending.
- Reduce the remand population by strengthening alternatives to remand, investing in bail supervision services and supported accommodation, and introducing a legal presumption against remand.
- Withdraw Crown immunity from prisons to ensure accountability.
- Introduce special provision for offenders who are mentally ill and for women who are pregnant or have young children, so that imprisonment is a last resort and specialist support is in place.
Police and fire services
- Reduce police call-outs and implement a trauma informed approach by transferring mental health crisis responses from Police Scotland to properly funded community crisis services.
- Ensure police resources are effective at tackling both serious organised crime & cybercrime.
- Support the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to expand into frontline climate emergency response, ensuring all fire stations are actively equipped for flooding, wildfire and extreme-weather response, and that fire fighters are protected from toxic contamination and other health risks at work.