Reconviction rates in Scotland: 2015-2016 offender cohort

Reconviction Rates in Scotland: 2015-16 Offender Cohort

This bulletin forms part of the Scottish Government series of statistical bulletins on the criminal justice system. Statistics are presented on the number of individuals who were released from a custodial sentence or given a non-custodial sentence in 2015-16 and then subsequently reconvicted within a year, along with selected trends.

The reconviction rate, which is the percentage of offenders who are reconvicted, and the average number of reconvictions per offender in 2015-16 have both decreased since 2014-15, continuing a general decrease since 2003-04. Between 2014-15 and 2015-16, the reconviction rate decreased by 1.3 percentage points, from 28.3% to 27.0% and the average number of reconvictions per offender decreased by 6%, from 0.50 to 0.47 (Chart 1 and Table 1).

Chart 1: Reconviction rate and the average number of reconvictions per offender: 1997-98 to 2015-16 cohort