Scottish Prison Population Projections: February 2024 Edition

5 Microsimulation Model Results: January to June 2024

The latest prison population projections are shown in figure 14 and table 2 below. These indicate that it is most likely that the overall prison population in Scotland will either remain stable or rise slightly between January 2024 and June 2024.

The results also show that it is most likely that the remand population will remain stable, but it could increase or decrease. If it decreases, primarily because of enhanced monthly case conclusions, this could contribute to an increased sentenced population as people transition from remand to the sentenced population. It is projected that the sentenced population will either remain stable or rise slightly; it may rise if the overall rate of transition from remand to the sentenced population increases or if there is a greater inflow of individuals directly from the community to the sentenced population.

The upper total population and upper remand range estimates are from the scenario variant with a low conclusion rate and high remand arrival rate. The lower range estimates for the total and remand populations are from the scenario with a high conclusion rate and a low remand arrival rate. Inclusion of these less likely scenarios for this update has resulted in a larger range than the previous publication. If the new scenario variants featuring higher or lower remand arrivals were removed so the projection only included scenarios featuring central remand arrivals, as in the first publication^[28], then in June 2024: the projected average daily total population would be in the range from 7,600 to 8,300; the remand population in the range from 1,450 to 2,600 and the sentenced population in the range from 5,600 to 6,300.

It should be noted that whilst the projections are based on recent trends, they do not explicitly model the impact of potential future policy or operational changes and their potential impact on the prison population.