YOUR political diary (Unspun, The Herald, May 30) suggested that I should not expect a Christmas card from the Justice Secretary, Michael Matheson, in view of the evidence I provided to the Justice Committee last Wednesday in its consideration of the Prisoners (Control of Release) Bill.
Perhaps you are right, but I suspect you do him an injustice.
I spent last Thursday and Friday at the International Symposium to Consider the Future of Custody for Women in Scotland organised by the Scottish Prison Service and the Scottish Government. Mr Matheson opened the symposium and attended again at the end to hear my summary of the discussions and of the advice gleaned from the expert delegates from Scotland from about a dozen other countries across three continents. I was struck both by the Justice Secretary's enthusiastic support for the symposium and by the way he listened and responded thoughtfully to the advice that it generated.
Both experiences - giving evidence to the committee and attending the symposium - reminded me that, in Scotland at least, it is possible for academics to be critical friends of government, of parliament and of policy and practice. We are of no use if we can't be critical where we see proposals as lacking a sound basis in evidence or principle, and we are of little use if we aren't friendly enough to talk and to share what we know - and what we don't know.
One thing I do know is that many of the overseas guests at the symposium were deeply envious of the situation of Scottish criminologists and of the constructive, critical dialogue with policy and practice that we enjoy.
Fergus McNeill,
Professor of Criminology and Social Work,
School of Social and Political Sciences, Ivy Lodge, 63 Gibson Street, Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article