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Publication - Statistics

Criminal justice statistics user guide

Published
23 June 2026
From
Director of Safer Communities
Directorate
Safer Communities Directorate
Topic
Law and order

This document provides detailed information on the Criminal Proceedings and Reconviction Rates in Scotland statistical bulletins. It is designed as a reference guide with explanatory notes regarding issues and classifications which are crucial to the production and presentation of criminal justice statistics in Scotland.

Part of

Supporting documents

7. Comparisons with other non-Scottish Government statistics

Other statistics are also produced by bodies external to the Scottish Government. This section covers a selection of the most relevant comparisons.

7.1 Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal service (COPFS)

COPFS publish a number of outputs, including annual figures relating to the number of cases reported to the Procurator Fiscal each year, the number of cases disposed of and the type of disposal. More information is available in the COPFS Case processing statistics 2020 to 2025. Some of these figures are presented in Table 1 and Chart 1 of Criminal Proceedings in Scotland and are clearly marked as cases. Each COPFS case includes at least one charge, similar to criminal proceedings, but may involve more than one offender. The criminal proceedings statistics count individual people disposed of. It is not currently possible to extract information on some of the other COPFS non-court disposals from the CHS e.g. fiscal work orders and no actions.

COPFS also publish charge-level statistics in publications such as Hate Crime in Scotland and Domestic Abuse Charges reported to COPFS, both found on the COPFS publications page. The counting base for these statistics are at individual charge level rather than case level. As Criminal Proceedings in Scotland statistics only measure the main charge in a case it would be expected that COPFS figures would be higher. There will also be timing differences since COPFS figures are based on the year of the report to COPFS, while Criminal Proceedings in Scotland figures are based on the year a person was sentenced.

7.2 Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS)

SCTS produce their own publications, including some management information statistics such as SCTS Monthly Criminal Management Information. These data count cases and trials. A case can have one or multiple accused individuals and not all cases will go to trial due to a guilty plea. As such these data are not directly comparable to Criminal Proceedings in Scotland or Reconviction Rates in Scotland statistics. However, they do provide additional confirmation of broader trends in court activity.

7.3 Comparisons with statistics from other countries

Direct comparisons with statistics from other countries should be taken with care as legal frameworks and legislation for criminal offences differ. In addition, data collection techniques and recording definitions will vary considerably. For example, the Ministry of Justice’s Criminal court statistics quarterly are based on information directly captured from the court’s operational databases and are typically over a year to the latest quarter. By contrast these statistics for Scotland are from the CHS, a police database that collates information from COPFS and the SCTS, and are published on a financial year basis.

Despite international differences, Criminal Proceedings statistics are included in international reports collated by the United Nations and Eurostat such as:

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