Millions of pounds spent on prisons and criminal justice social work have failed to halt high reoffending rates, Scotland's justice minister, Cathy Jamieson, said yesterday.

Making the case for a new central body to tackle recividism, Ms Jamieson said more than two out of every three people convicted of an offence in 2002 had offended before.
She told the Scottish Parliament: "Every single one of those offences represents someone in this country whose life has been changed by the criminal actions of another."