Before she went to North America to see problem-solving courts in action, friends and colleagues asked Lynn Jolly why she did not visit Holland or Norway instead.

The reason she did not go to countries better known for forward thinking penal policy was practical, she says, based on the funding and political environment in Scotland.

"I thought, 'I will see the most progressive thinking but I will have zero chance of implementing any of that here. It would all have to live in my head'."

But Ms Jolly, community justice services manager with the charity Cornerstone, was surprised at what she found in Canada and America, she explains. While, culturally, they are a closer fit with Scotland, they are also more forward-thinking than many might assume.

Cornerstone, which has bases in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee, works with people with learning support needs. Ms Jolly was appointed in 2010 as part of an diversification into criminal justice.

Between 50% and 80% of prisoners are functionally illiterate, according to recent estimates. Not all will have identified learning difficulties, but previous studies have shown high levels of conditions such as dyslexia among the prison population.

Cornerstone offers services, including working with agencies such as the police, to help them recognise people with learning disabilities who are at risk of offending or victimisation. It also runs Positive Tracks, a Big Lottery funded scheme. It helps people leaving custody who have learning difficulties to find housing or employment.

"It is not that a learning support need means you are more likely to offend, but there are a high prevalence of people with such needs in the prison system," she says.

Her visit to North America last autumn was funded by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust under its prestigious travelling fellowship scheme.

Many of the ideas she saw are attracting interest from policy-makers in Scotland, but underdeveloped, she says.

Her experiences will soon be published in a report for the trust, but are already chronicled in a lively and amusing blog, Travels With Fyodor . The title relates to Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment, which she read as she travelled. "I'm very pretentious, and what could be more pretentious?" she jokes.

Travelling to Florida, Georgia, San Francisco and Toronto, she saw how drug courts - which Scotland already has - have been complemented by other justice services specialising in diverting people with mental health needs or learning difficulties from custody. "It is not about minimising offences, but a recognition that crime is often a symptom of underlying symptoms," she says.

The Scottish Government's Justice Directorate is interested in such ideas, she adds, although parts of England are closer to delivering on them, with NHS mental health services already working with the courts in Lancashire, for example.

It is the sort of thinking encouraged by Lord Carloway earlier this week. In an interview with The Herald, the senior judge called for a focus on the individual in sentencing, working with them to modify their behaviour rather than relying on custodial sentences.

Even in America, such ideas are seen by many as common sense, Ms Jolly found. "Florida, a state where we might have preconceived ideas about justice, is an example of people saying, 'Just sending people like this to jail for three months is silly'."

"When people have done prison time and come out in a few months, sorting out issues such as housing, finding a doctor and getting work or benefits is hard for anyone, but if you have a learning need it is just impossible. With modest support you can make a difference."

Having courts that recognise one issue - such as drugs - but not others is also problematic, she says. "I came to the conclusion that working in 'silos' of expertise is something of a disability in itself when it comes to responding to human distress or need," she writes at one point in her blog. Meanwhile, speaking to staff of a youth detention centre, she was reminded of giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee about learning disability in the criminal justice system.

A representative of a children's advocacy organisation intervened to speak about school exclusion. The committee chairman kept reminding her that this was the Justice Committee and had no remit for schools.

While the chairman was right, she says, "I remembered thinking we were all missing the point by not making the link with the early years."

She ended up thinking that, if courts can assess people for substance dependency issues, there is no reason they can't also assess mental health and learning support needs. "If that is shown to be more effective in reducing recidivism isn't it worth the additional resources in the long run?" she says.

Her perpetual thought was about how the systems she saw could be adapted to Scottish settings.

"I felt the issues are the same. The people are the same. Can I see this working in a sheriff court in Dunbartonshire? There were superficial differences. But a lot of it I could see happening."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "The Government has agreed to a trial period for a problem solving summary criminal court These courts are tailored to meet the individual needs of the offender. The Scottish Government is committed to working with the learning disability sector and national justice organisations to improve the way in which the criminal justice system responds to the needs of people with learning disabilities."

l Travels with Fydor blog: http://travelswithfyodor.blogspot.co.uk/