Scottish Prison Population Projections: June 2024 Edition

3 Overview of Scottish Prison Population and Court Demand Trends

Figure 1 shows that there have been substantial changes to the total, remand, and sentenced populations in the wake of the 2020 Covid pandemic.

Total population

As shown in Figure 1, the prison population fluctuated within a range between 7,350 and 7,650 from September 2020 until late 2022. In 2023 the population grew strongly, and has remained above 7,800 since mid-July 2023. As expected, the population temporarily fell during late December and early January 2024 due to seasonal effects. It increased rapidly from 7,965 to 8,244 between 1^st March and 1^st May 2024.

Remand population

The remand population (see Figure 1) increased from the beginning of 2022, reaching a peak of 2,292 on 1^st February 2022, then typically decreased gradually (other than around December 2022/January 2023), to 2,111 on 1^st April 2023. During April and May 2023, the remand population increased, to reach a peak of 2,312 on 30th May 2023. From August to December 2023 the remand population generally decreased (it was 2,081 on 1^st January). From January to May 2024 it has increased, reaching a peak of 2,360 on 14^th May 2024. The outlook for the remand population in 2024 remains uncertain and it is unknown whether it will follow the trends seen in recent years.

Sentenced population

The sentenced population decreased slightly during 2022, from around 5,350 in January to around 5,250 in December. In contrast, during 2023 the sentenced population increased markedly, reaching a peak of almost 5,900 near the end of the year. The sentenced population then reduced somewhat at the end of December but increased again from January to April 2024, reaching just over 6,000 on 30^th April 2024^[6].

Remand Arrivals

Figure 2 shows monthly remand arrivals between April 2020 and April 2024. Remand arrivals have increased month on month for each successive month since December 2023 and in April were the highest since August 2020. Furthermore, the average monthly remand arrivals for the three month period up to the data cut off point of 1^st May 2024 (i.e., from February to April 2024) were the highest for any three month period since September 2020, at around 830 per month. During the last 12 months the three-month period with the lowest remand arrivals (excluding December due to seasonal effects) was September to November 2023, with an average of around 750 remand arrivals per month.

The sentenced prison population from March 2020 to April 2024, sub-divided by sentence length is shown in Figure 3 below. The population serving sentences of less than or equal to one year in length increased between 1^st January 2023 and 1^st May 2024^[8]. The population serving sentences of one to four years also increased during 2023 but has been relatively stable since the start of 2024. The population serving overall sentences of more than four years, as well as those serving Orders of Lifelong Restriction, have seen continuous increases over several years and now exceed pre-pandemic levels. The population serving life sentences has declined gradually since 2020.

The growth in the total prison population during 2023 was driven by both remand and sentenced arrivals to custody^[7]. The remand population is influenced by the level of new cases registered and cases concluded in Scottish Courts^[10]. The level of court throughput (case conclusions) also has implications for the flow into the sentenced population. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) frequently publish information on the level of registrations and conclusions across all courts^[11].

A switch in court recovery resources occurred on 1^st April 2023, resulting in 2 additional High Court and 6 additional Sheriff Solemn trial courts^[12], but 10 fewer Sheriff Court Summary trial courts. The charts in Figures 4 to 9 below show registrations and conclusions for High Court, Sheriff Court Solemn and Sheriff Court Summary. Figure 4 shows the number of High Court indictment registrations between 2014/15 Q1 (covering April to June 2014) and 2023/24 Q3 (covering October to December 2023)^[13]. There were slightly fewer High Court indictments registered in the first nine months of 2023/24 (673) than in the first nine months of 2022/23 (712). In contrast, as shown in figure 5, High Court conclusions during the first nine months of 2023/24 were 20% higher than during the first nine months of 2022/23. Some of the increase in conclusions may be attributed to an increase in High Court capacity in 2023/24 (addition of two High Court trial courtrooms from April 2023^[14]). Similarly, as shown in figure 7, following the introduction of six further Sheriff Court Solemn trial courts in April 2023, conclusions in 2023/24 Q1, Q2 and Q3 were higher than at any time since at least 2014/15 Q1. Indictment registrations (see figure 6) in Sheriff Solemn have also been high recently; there were almost a third more Sheriff Solemn indictments in the first 9 months of 2023/24 than there were during the first 9 months of 2022/23.

The level of complaints registered in Sheriff Summary Courts in the first nine months of 2023/24 was 17% higher (48,770) than in the first nine months of 2022/23 (41,832) (see figure 8). Sheriff Summary complainst registered were at their highest level in 2023/24 Q2 since 2020/21 Q2. Sheriff Court Summary conclusions in the first nine months of 2023/24 were around 7% lower than during the first 9 months of 2023/24 (see figure 9). There were slightly fewer Sheriff Summary conclusions than registrations over the first nine months of 2023/24. The reduction in conclusions is mainly due to the switch of court recovery programme resources from summary to solemn in April 2023, so there were 10 fewer Sheriff Court Summary trial courtrooms in 2023/24.

Taking all courts into consideration, elevated remand arrivals during the first nine months of 2023/24 are associated with an increased level of criminal case registrations^[21].

SCTS monthly management information^[22] shows that the national total trials scheduled^[23] across all criminal courts increased steeply, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, by around 140% from 18,100 in April 2020 to over 43,600 at the peak in January 2022. However, by the end of March 2024 there were less than 27,000. The number of outstanding trials in High Court (see figure 10) decreased by 6% from 687 to 649 during the first 9 months of 2023/24. In addition, the number of Sheriff Solemn outstanding trials (figure 11) decreased by 19% over the first 9 months of 2023/24. The enhanced court recovery resources in solemn courts has helped with this reduction in future scheduled trials^[24]. However, as figure 12 shows, the number of Sheriff Summary trials outstanding increased slightly between between April (when summary court resources were reduced) and December 2023.