Criminal justice statistics user guide
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.
8. Punishment part of life sentences and Orders for Lifelong Restriction
8.1 Background
The criminal proceedings bulletin includes an appendix which describes data on the punishment part of life sentences and Orders for Lifelong Restriction (OLRs). Previously this was published alongside the main bulletin as ‘experimental statistics (now called ‘official statistics in development’). Beginning with Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2023 to 2024, published December 2025, these statistics are now published as ‘official statistics’ in an appendix to the main bulletin.
These data on punishment parts of sentences are based on data from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) information management system. The SCTS administers the Scottish Courts and record the outcomes of court proceedings. This is a different data source from the other criminal proceedings data which are derived from the Criminal History System (CHS). Note, however, that some SCTS data feeds into the Criminal History System, so other data in this publication are already derived from SCTS data.
Like the CHS data, the SCTS data are from an administrative case management system which is not designed for statistical purposes. We have worked closely with statisticians in SCTS who understand the data. The data are checked by them, and they consider that the data are of sufficient quality for publication. The data may change in future where appeals change the length of the punishment period or late sentencing decisions that missed our publication cut-off date are included in a subsequent publication.
Previously these statistics assigned sentences to a financial year based on verdict date. This approach has been reviewed and to be more comparable to the rest of the criminal proceedings statistics these have been updated to be based on sentence date. The sentencing date typically follows the verdict date to allow a sentencing report to be prepared. As a result of this difference, the same case may now appear in a different financial year than when assigned by verdict date. This change has been backdated. Any differences caused by this change are slight and the broad trends remain the same.
8.2 Methodology
The figures shown here are based on people proceeded against, as in the rest of this publication. A person may get a life sentence or OLR for multiple charges (described as “in cumulo” in court). The sentence is counted once per person, rather than for each charge, in the calculations for the average length of the punishment part presented in the tables. If a person received more than one life sentence or OLR in their lifetime in separate proceedings, then these would be counted as separate sentences. Where a person received a second life sentence this would typically be the result of proceedings for historical offences occurring after they already received their first life sentence.
In the main publication, the “main charge” is determined by the severity of sentence given, then the crime type. In the punishment part analysis the main charge, whether a life sentence for murder or for another crime, was determined by the type of crime committed. In practice this means the specific “crime code” used. The crime codes used by the Scottish Government for statistical purposes categorise charges under crimes and offences. The crime code number generally increases with decreasing “severity” of crimes, with murder given the lowest number, and some road traffic offences having the highest numbers. Where there was more than one charge in a proceeding, the charge with the lowest crime code is taken as the main crime. For life sentences, these will mostly be murder. Please note that the crime code system is not designed to be fully hierarchical to fully reflect “severity” of crimes. Indeed, it would be difficult to determine if some crimes are more “severe” than others without looking at the nature of individual cases. For example, sexual crimes typically have higher crime code numbers than violent crimes since the two are counted in two separate groups, rather than the crimes from one group being perceived to be more “severe” than the other. This methodology may change in future as we continue to develop the statistics and receive feedback.