Coronavirus (COVID-19): Justice Analytical Services data report- February 2021

Prisons

Prison population

While the total prison population has fallen slightly with reduced court business, the number of people held on remand remains at a historic high level.

In February 2021 (up until the morning of 1st March):

• the population fell by 99 to 7,341
• 1,948 were on remand: 1,643 (22%) untried & 291 (4%) awaiting sentence
• 66% of arrivals in January were untried (489 of 745), and 20% awaiting sentence (149)

Remand Arrival Offences

There were 638 un-sentenced arrivals to prison with known offence types in February, awaiting trial or sentencing for the following alleged offences

Note: Double-counting may occur where an individual is absent from prison for a night in the week and then returns. Where an individual has multiple alleged offence types, the offence towards the top of the list in the chart is used as the index offence.

Revision: The way index offences are identified for remand prisoners changed from December 2020. Offences are now prioritised on the basis of average sentence length from Criminal Proceedings 2018-19. This has increased the proportion where Common Assault, Drugs or Handling Offensive Weapons is the index offence. It has reduced the number of remanded individuals for whom Crimes Against Public Justice and Vandalism are the index offences

Further Information:

Latest published annual prison population statistics can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-prison-population-statistics-2019-20/