On first reading, it’s difficult to have any sympathy for Natilie McGarry, the former MSP who’s just been jailed for 18 months for embezzling a total of £26,000 from, amongst others, a prison reform group and a local food bank. In retrospect, dedicating her 2015 electoral victory to ““every mother who has queued for a food bank”, may not have been her best idea.
Her victims, however, are asking for her to be given a non-custodial sentence and, on this occasion, I’m inclined to agree.
The best way of protecting the public would be to bar her from roles of public trust. A ban from holding public office, being a charity trustee and being a company director would seem to fit the bill.
The best way of penalising her would be a fine (in the assumption that she’s got any money) and/or some form of payback -as one online commentator suggested, a spell working at a food bank would seem appropriate – 37 hours a week for 18 months would equate to £26,000-worth of work at minimum wage would cost the state a lot less and there would be a public benefit.
After Work 
Absolutely correct. Custodial sentences are for dangerous people. Prison is expensive and by and large it doesn’t work. I’m a great believer in “Let the punishment fit the crime” and in this instance appropriate voluntary work fits the bill.
Nothing pleases me more than watching the local n’er-do-well’s dressed in their silly “Community Payback” fluorescent tabards picking up litter and soggy leaves in cold and torrential rain, looking utterly utterly miserable. 🙂