1. Average Daily Populations

[Supplementary tables A1]

The average daily prison population[1] in 2022-23 was 7,426.  This is a small decrease of 1% from the previous year (7,506), indicating broad stability in average daily population levels across the most recent reporting years.

Figure 1: Long-term trends in the average daily prison population, 2002-03 to 2022-23

Figure 1 shows the fluctuations in the average daily prison population over the last two decades, as well as the close correlation between different sources of information on the overall average daily prison population.  Further comparisons between these different sources are provided in section 9.

1.1 COVID impacts on the prison population

[Supplementary tables X1]

Using only annual average daily population figures masks in-year changes in population levels.  Under normal conditions, the changes occurring in the prison population on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis are small relative to the size of that population overall.  However, as reported in previous recent editions[2], coronavirus public health measures and the adaptations to these across the justice system, led to rapid and significant changes in the prison population from Spring 2020.  Compliance with public health measures during the pandemic influenced operations across the criminal justice system.  The Lord Advocate issued revised guidelines on the use of police custody, and the courts had to close for extended periods or operate at reduced capacity.  Prison establishments had to ensure sufficient space to allow prisoners to observe public health measures.

The impact of justice system responses to public health measures in 2020-21 included: a decreased volume of custody cases reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, and an increased volume of undertakings reports[3]; a reduced likelihood of an accused being remanded[4]; a reduced volume of concluded cases in courts, with subsequent reduction in custodial sentences issued and growth in the trial backlog[5]; and an agreement in the initial stages of the pandemic response to early release of eligible short-term sentenced prisoners[6].

Combined, these changes across the justice system impacted both the in-flows to custody and the out-flows from custody throughout 2020-21.  While there was no further early release of prisoners, the changes observed in the first pandemic year continued across subsequent reporting years.  The impacts of the changes occurring in response to the pandemic have not yet been fully isolated in the data held by the Scottish Government.  However, it is reasonable to conclude that the changes described above have resulted in the lower prison population levels reported since 2020-21.  This should not be interpreted as indicative of longer-term prison population trends.  Chapter 10 outlines other important factors determining the level and composition of the prison population, all of which may contribute to further changes in the coming years.

Figure 2 shows the month-to-month changes in the prison population from January 2020 to March 2023.  The average prison population fell rapidly in the first three months of the pandemic, from around 8,000 in March 2020 to just under 7,000 by June 2020.  The population rose thereafter, and broadly stabilised from September 2020 at around 7,500.  The chart shows that the average prison population fell and rose across 2021 and 2022.  From December 2022, the average population began to increase, returning to the higher levels observed in 2021 by March 2023.

Figure 2: Monthly and quarterly average prison populations, showing a rapid reduction between March and June 2020 and stability from September 2020 to December 2022, after which the population increased

1.2 Legal status

[Supplementary tables M1 and X1]

There are known discrepancies between legal status populations determined using cellWise data and the live system data in other published sources.  See section 9.1 for details.

Figure 3: Legal Status – average daily populations, 2009-10 to 2022-23

The overall (average daily) prison population remained broadly stable between 2021-22 and 2022-23, decreasing by just 1%.  Figure 3 breaks the average daily population down by legal status[7] category, showing that the sentenced population remained at very similar levels in 2021-22 and 2022-23, falling by just 15 to 5,583.  Over the same period, the untried population decreased by 54 to 1,517, while the convicted awaiting sentence (CAS) population decreased by 4 to 287.

The overall (average daily) remand population (untried + CAS) decreased by 3% between 2021-22 and 2022-23.  On the average day in 2022-23, 1,804 prisoners were on remand.  This is the second highest annual rate to date at 24% of the population, down from 25% in 2021-22. 

Figure 4 and Figure 5 provide the monthly and quarterly remand and sentenced populations since January 2020.  After an initial sharp decrease, the remand population grew rapidly to September 2020 and thereafter levelling off for the remainder of 2020-21 at a higher level than pre-pandemic.  After falling during 2022, remand numbers increased in early 2023 before continuing to fall slowly over the remainder of the first quarter.

Figure 4: Monthly and quarterly average prison populations on remand, with a rapid reduction to April 2020, a steep increase to September 2020 followed by a period with broadly stable high levels

The sentenced population fell substantially and rapidly between April and July 2020.  Since then it has remained broadly stable (between 5,500 and 5,700 until early 2023) and considerably below pre-pandemic levels.  However, in the first three months of 2023 there was a consistent increase in the sentenced population and on the average day in March 2023 it stood at 5,738 – the highest monthly level since May 2020.

Figure 5: Monthly and quarterly average sentenced prison population, showing a rapid reduction to July 2020 followed by a period of broad stabilisation from September 2020 then an uptick in Q1 of 2023

1.3 Index Offence Groups

[Supplementary tables M2]

This section examines the index offence groups of the (average daily) sentenced  population.  A more detailed discussion of the offence categories within these groups is provided in section 4.  The alleged offences of those held on remand are discussed in section 5.

Figure 6: Sentenced index offence groups – average daily populations, 2009-10 to 2022-23

Overall there was stability in the size of the (average daily) sentenced population between 2021-22 and 2022-23.  However, there were changes across the different index offence groups[8], and these varied in direction and extent as Figure 6 shows.  The patterns observed reflect both the impacts of the pandemic and a continuation of pre-existing trends.

There were increases in the populations with index offences in Group 2 (Sexual crimes, +10% to 1,225) and Group 7 (Miscellaneous offences,+6% to 118).  Group 6 (Anti-social offences) and Group 1 (Non-sexual crimes of violence) remained broadly stable across the reporting years at 238 (+2%) and 2,530 (-1%), respectively.  At 45% of the sentenced population (-1% from 2021-22), Group 1 remained the largest sentenced index offence group in the average daily population.  Those with Group 2 (Sexual) index offences increased to 22% (+2 percentage points) of the (average daily) sentenced population between 2021-22 and 2022-23.  

The populations with index offences in Group 3 (Dishonesty) and Group 5 (Crimes against society) continued to fall in 2022-23 – down 12% to 304 and down 8% to 743, respectively. 

The changes occurring within the index offence groups continues to change the overall offence profile of the prison population.  The consistently large (average daily) population with index offences in Group 1, the growing population with index offences in Group 2 and the falling populations with index offences in Group 3 (Dishonesty) and Group 5 (Crimes against society) has led to a sentenced population increasingly comprised of those with index violent and sexual offences.   Other groups’ shares shifted by less than 1 percentage point.  Together, those with index offences in Groups 1 and 2 comprised 67% of the sentenced population in 2022-23.

1.4 Index sentences

[Supplementary tables M3]

The index sentence is the longest single sentence being served in each occupancy period[9].  Where a person in prison has multiple custodial sentences, the overall sentence length cannot be calculated from the available data.  This is due to a lack of information as to whether multiple custodial sentences are to be served consecutively or concurrently.  Where an individual is given multiple sentences to be served consecutively (a common occurrence with multiple short sentences), their overall sentence length will be longer than the longest individual sentence.

For clarity, the shorter sentence bands presented in the supplementary tables and in the interactive analysis tool[10] have been compressed in the following charts in this section.

While the overall size of the (average daily) sentenced population remained broadly stable between 2021-22 and 2022-23, Figure 7 shows this pattern was not observed across index sentence bands. 

The (average daily) population serving index sentences of one year or less increased by around 6% from 921 in 2021-22 to 972 in 2022-23.  The population with index sentences of ‘> 1 and ≤ 2 years’ and of ‘> 2 and ≤ 4 years’ decreased (-10% to 736 and -5% to 690, respectively).  Over the same period there was a 6% increase in the ‘> 4 and < 10 years’ category, from 1,376 to 1,464, and a 5% increase in those serving index sentences of ‘10+ years’, from 271 to 285.  The populations serving life and other indeterminate sentences fell by 3% each (from 953 to 928 and 192 to 187, respectively).

Figure 7: Index sentences – average daily populations, 2009-10 to 2022-23

The share of the sentenced population serving shorter index sentences remains below pre-pandemic levels.  In 2019-20, 53% of the sentenced population had index sentences of 4 years or less (the lowest three bands in Figure 7).  In 2022-23 this proportion had fallen to 43%.

1.5 Further population characteristics

The following two chapters of this report discuss the average daily populations of women (section 2) and young people (section 3) in custody.  Further information on other age groups, as well as information on other available protected characteristics (ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation), and breakdowns by prison establishment and armed forces history are available in the Supplementary Tables B1-7 and M1 accompanying this release. 

Further exploration of these data can be conducted through the interactive analytical tool at https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-prison-population-statistics/.