Justice Social Work Statistics in Scotland: 2023-24 – Part 1

10 Home detention curfew assessments

(Table 1)

Key statistics for 2023-24:

• The number of home detention curfew assessment reports completed was 750 in 2023-24. Numbers have been steady over the last five years, though are substantially lower than across years 2014-15 to 2017-18 due to changes in assessment procedures.
• Ninety per cent of home detention curfew reports were for males.
• Those between 31 and 40 years old accounted for the highest proportion of home detention curfew reports (39 per cent).

Those serving a custodial sentence can access electronically monitored early release under a home detention curfew (HDC).

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) undertake an individual risk assessment on all eligible individuals who wish to be considered for HDC release. This considers if the individual can be managed (subject to a curfew and licence conditions) in the community whilst released on HDC. If the individual progresses through the risk assessment process, the SPS will ask local authority justice social work to undertake a community assessment report (CAR) to assess whether the proposed HDC release address/location is suitable. The SPS will take the information provided within the CAR into account when deciding whether the individual should be granted release on HDC.

From 2014-15 to 2017-18, there were at least 2,500 reports a year. This declined in 2018-19 to 1,900 and has fallen further since then, averaging 790 in the last five years. The total of 750 in 2023-24 was the 2^nd lowest in the last five years.

The decline since 2017-18 is the result of a change in the approach to the HDC assessment framework. In 2018, new guidance was produced on how the individualised risk assessment for HDC would be undertaken by SPS. Once that new process was operational, it resulted in a substantial reduction in the number of individuals being assessed as suitable for HDC release. Therefore, there has been a corresponding reduction in the number of CARs being requested from justice social work departments.