3. Young People in Custody

[Supplementary tables A2, B2, and M1]

The number of young people in prison in Scotland continues to fall.  On an average day in 2009-10 there were 1,012 people under 21 in Scottish prisons, and young people made up 13% of the prison population.  In 2022-23 there were 159 young people in custody on an average day, comprising just 2% of the prison population overall.

In the context of a broadly stable (average daily) prison population overall, the number of young people in custody fell between 2021-22 and 2022-23.  The population of 16 and 17 year olds fell from 14 in 2021-22 to 9 in 2022-23.  The population of 18 to 20 year olds fell  by around 13% from 173 to 150 over the same period.

The overall population of young people in custody broken down by legal status is provided in Figure 12.  This shows that the sentenced population of young people continued to fall in 2022-23, with 76 sentenced under-21 year olds on the average day; a 20% reduction from 96 in 2021-22.  The untried population also fell in 2022-23 (around 12% from 72 in 2021-22 to 64 in 2022-23), while the CAS population remained the same over the reporting period (17 in both 2021-22 and 2022-23). 

The proportion of young people in custody on remand (untried and CAS) has been consistently higher than that of the prison population as a whole, and pre-pandemic was around 30%.  Ongoing reductions in the sentenced population since 2019-20 have resulted in an increase in this proportion to around 50% of young people (80) in custody being held on remand on the average day in 2022-23. 

Figure 12: Young people (under 21) in prison by legal status – average daily populations, 2009-10 to 2022-23

Looking at further age breakdowns, the reduction in 16 and 17 year olds is observed in the remand population only.  Between 2021-22 and 2022-23, the (average daily) sentenced population was stable at 3, but the untried population halved, falling from 10 to 5. 

For 18 to 20 year olds, both remand and sentenced populations reduced between 2021-22 and 2022-23 (-3 and -19 respectively). 

3.1 Index offence groups

[Supplementary tables M2]

As shown in Figure 13, the (average daily) sentenced population of young people continued a previously observed downward trend[1] in index offence Groups 1, 2 and 5 between 2021-22 and 2022-23.  Other groups remained stable at a very low level over the same period[2].

Figure 13: Index offence groups of sentenced young people (under 21 years) – average daily populations, 2009-10 to 2022-23

Those with index offences in Group 1 (Violence) continued to account for the largest group in the sentenced population of young people in 2022-23 at 63% (48 sentenced young people on the average day). 

3.2 Index sentences

[Supplementary table M3]

Figure 14 shows the index sentence[3] profile of the (average daily) population of young people under 21. 

In line with the overall trend, there has been a reduction in the population of young people in each of the index sentence bands between 2021-22 and 2022-23.  The population in the two lowest index sentence bands fell very slightly (-1 in both ‘≤ 1 year’ and ‘> 1 and ≤ 2 years’, to 30 and 17 respectively), while there was a greater fall in the population of young people with an index sentence of ‘> 2 and ≤ 4 years’ and ’> 4 and < 10 years’ (-6 to 14 and -10 to 9).  There were no young people with determinate index sentences of ‘10+ years’ identified on the average day in 2022-23, and just 4 with Life sentences.

Figure 14: Index sentences of young people (under 21) – average daily populations, 2009-10 to 2022-23