Scottish prison population projections

3 Overview of Scottish Prison Population Trends

Figure 1 shows the average annual daily prison population between 2009-10 and 2021-22, sourced from the latest official prison population statistics.^[1] As shown below, the population decreased every year from 2011-12 until 2017-18 when the average daily population reached around 7,500. The prison population then rose sharply to an annual daily average of around 8,200 in 2019-2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Figure 2 shows that since 2019-20 there have been substantial changes to the total, remand, and sentenced populations during and after the pandemic:

• The average daily prison population fell sharply from around 8,000 to just under 7,000 between March 2020 and June 2020, rising quickly thereafter to around 7,400 in September 2020 then remaining relatively stable until early 2023 (it was around 7,500 on 1st April 2023).
• The average daily remand population dropped from above 1,500 to just over 1,100 between March and April 2020, then increased rapidly to around 2,000 in September 2020. During 2021 the remand population continued to rise, albeit much more slowly. After initially continuing to increase in early 2022 (reaching a peak of nearly 2,300 on 1st February 2022) the remand population then decreased gradually (other than around December 2022/January 2023) over the next year, reaching just over 2,100 on 1st April 2023.

Adherence to Covid-related public health measures effected normal activity in the court and prison systems. These measures, and the adaptations implemented in response, had a substantial effect on the remand and sentenced populations, especially around March to July 2020, including as a result of an agreement in the initial stages of the pandemic response to early release of eligible short term sentenced prisoners.