Journey times in the Scottish Criminal Justice System: 2022 to 2023

4. Introduction

This bulletin presents new information on the time taken from offence to verdict for persons accused of criminal charges. This is an update to the first in a series of experimental official statistics bulletins on this topic and analysis will develop over time in line with user needs. The time taken for the accused to progress through the justice system between offence and verdict times will include:

• the time taken for a victim to report an offence to the police and the associated police investigation time,
• COPFS time in processing the reported crime and subject preparation for court where relevant,
• then finally for the accused whose case progresses to court, the court time in hearing and disposing the case. This stage can involve multiple contributors including: SCTS, COPFS, Police Scotland, defence solicitors, SLAB etc.

The time taken for the accused to progress through the system will be referred to as the ‘journey time’. The journey times of two categories of accused are presented here:

i) those that are reported by the police or another reporting agency to COPFS and are disposed by COPFS either because they have decided that no action should be taken or an alternative to prosecution (e.g. a warning letter or a fiscal fine) is issued and,

ii) accused that COPFS decide should be prosecuted in court.