Criminal Proceedings in Scotland 2012-13

Annex D - Definitions, Classifications and Notation

D.1 The measures available to a court in sentencing a convicted person depend on a number of matters including what Parliament has legislated for in terms of appropriate penalties and whether the accused is an adult (21 or over), a young offender (aged 16 but less than 21) or a juvenile (under 16 or under 18 with a current supervisory requirement from a children's hearing). In some cases, the court may obtain evidence on whether the accused is suffering from a mental disorder. In 2012-13 the available measures include:

Custodial sentences

a. Imprison the offender (or sentence a young offender to a Young Offenders' Institution (YOI)) or, if the offender has been released on licence/under supervision following a previous conviction, recall to prison or YOI.

b. Issue an Order for Lifelong Restriction (OLR). OLR provides for the lifelong supervision of high-risk violent and sexual offenders and allows for a greater degree of intensive supervision than is the current norm. The OLR is designed to ensure that offenders, after having served an adequate period in prison to meet the requirements of punishment, do not present an unacceptable risk to public safety once they are released into the community. The period spent in the community will be an integral part of the sentence, which lasts for the remaining period of the offender's life.

c. Sentence a young offender under 18 years of age convicted of murder to detention for an indeterminate period (the effect of these sentences is normally detention in a young offenders institution).

d. Sentence a juvenile to a specified period of detention in a place and on such conditions as Scottish Ministers may direct.

(The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 introduced provisions to allow courts to impose additional post-release supervision on licence where they consider that any existing supervision after the offender's release from custody would not be enough to protect the public from serious harm from the offender. These 'extended sentences' can be imposed on indictment cases on sex offenders or on violent offenders who would have received a determinate sentence of four years or more.) Changes made through the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 mean that courts can also now impose an extended sentence on non-sexual offences where there is a significant sexual aspect to the offence.)

Community sentences

a. Impose a community payback order (for offences committed after 1 February 2011).

b. Impose a probation order with or without various conditions including a requirement to do unpaid work (for offences committed prior to 1 February 2011).

c. Impose a community service order requiring the offender to undertake unpaid work (for offences committed prior to 1 February 2011).

d. Impose a supervised attendance order which the court can impose as an alternative to custody for people who have defaulted on fines imposed for minor criminal offences (for offences committed prior to 1 February 2011).

e. Impose a restriction of liberty order: a community sentence introduced by section 5 of the Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Act 1997 and available to courts nationally from 1 May 2002.

f. Impose a drug treatment and testing order (DTTO): a measure introduced by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and rolled out in phases from 1999 onwards. A new model for DTTOs has been rolled out to at least one local authority and this can be issued from lower courts and for less serious offenders.

Financial penalties

g. Fine the offender.

h. Impose a compensation order requiring the offender to compensate the victim for any resulting injury, loss, damage, alarm or distress.

Other sentences

i. Order an absolute discharge (with no conviction recorded in summary procedure) or, following a deferral of sentence, make no order.

j. Admonish the offender or make an order to find caution (the overwhelming majority of these are admonishments).

k. Remit the disposal of a child offender to a children's hearing (if the accused is a child, under 16 years of age or aged 16 or 17 and subject to a supervision requirement).

l. Make a guardianship order if the accused is suffering from mental disorder (with no conviction recorded in summary procedure).

m. Make a compulsion order if the accused is suffering from mental disorder (with a conviction recorded), for a period of six months with regular reviews.

D.2 The range of options available to the police for minor offences includes:

a. Anti-social behaviour fixed penalty notices (ASBFPNs) of £40, can be issued for eleven crime/offence types to people aged 16 or over. Payment of the penalty involves no admission of guilt.

b. Formal adult warnings (FAWs) are issued for minor offences, commonly including street drinking, drunk and incapable, urinating, minor theft by shoplifting, assault, breach of the peace and vandalism.

c. Restorative justice warnings are issued to juvenile offenders for minor offences when there have been no previous offences or referrals to the Children's Reporter, and a range of other criteria are met.

d. Warning letters can be issued to juvenile offenders for minor offences by the police or the Children's Reporter (however it is not possible to identify the issuing authority in the CHS data).

e. A small number of other types of police warnings have been identified in the CHS database, including prostitute warnings, verbal warnings and community warning notices.

D.3 When a report is submitted by the police to the procurator fiscal, prosecution in court is only one of a range of possible options for dealing with people who have been charged. This bulletin presents information on the following options, all non-convictions:

a. Fiscal fines of up to £300 for summary offences. Available to fiscals before SJR, but cannot be separately identified in CHS until after SJR.

b. Fiscal fixed penalties (mainly) for motor vehicle offences. Available to fiscals before SJR, but cannot be separately identified in CHS until after SJR.

c. Fiscal compensation orders of up to £5,000 payable to the victim. Only available after SJR, for personal injury, loss, damage, alarm or distress.

d. Combined fiscal fine and fiscal compensation order.

Notation

D.4 The following symbols are used throughout the tables in this bulletin:

- Nil
* Less than 0.5
n/a Not available

D.5 The percentage figures given in tables and charts have been independently rounded, so they may not always sum to the relevant sub-totals or totals.

Classification of crimes and offences

D.6 Contraventions of the law are divided, for statistical purposes only, into crimes and offences. The classification of crimes and offences used by the Scottish Government for criminal statistics contains over 300 codes. These are grouped in this bulletin as shown in the following table.