Statistics on registered sex offenders: FOI release

Information requested

1. Number of registered sex offenders have been released early from their sentences, each year for the last five years?

2. Number of those sex offenders who were released early re-offended and committed another sexual offence since being released? Can any response have each annual figure for the last five years, please?

3. Number of convicted rapists have gone on to commit a further rape after being released from prison? With a breakdown of each annual figure for the last five years, please?

4. Number of registered sex offenders are currently living in the community following an early release from a prison sentence?

Response

I attach a copy of some of the information you requested.

1, 2, 4. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. We do not hold information on registered sex offenders who have been released early from their sentences.

You can find the number of registered sex offenders who had committed further non-sexual crimes of violence or sexual crimes (at 31 March of each year) but with no reference to the stage of their release:

2019-20: Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA): overview report 2019 to 2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
2018-19: Multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) in Scotland: national overview report 2018 to 2019 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
2017-18: Multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) in Scotland: national overview report 2017 to 2018 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
2016-17: Multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) Scotland: national overview report 2016 to 2017 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
2015-16: Scottish Government MAPPA annual overview report 2016 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

3. Please find supplied data from the Scottish Government’s reconvictions dataset, on one year conviction rates for a sexual crime for people estimated to have been released from custody between 2014-15 and 2018-19 who were convicted of rape. Our reconvictions dataset includes reconvictions for people convicted of rape. However, the release dates in the dataset are estimated release dates based on the sentence length given in court, and assumptions such as whether automatic early release would have been available to them. Therefore we cannot determine where people were specifically released early or not.

The reconvictions dataset only includes a broad crime type for the type of reconviction, and not specific crimes, but the number reconvicted for a sexual crime was zero in most years.

One year reconviction rates for a sexual crime for people estimated to have been released from custody between 2014-15 and 2018-19 who were convicted of rape.

Cohort	Number of offenders(1)	Percent reconvicted for a sexual crime(2)
2014-15	38	2.6
2015-16	47	0
2016-17	49	0
2017-18	68	0
2018-19	66	0

(1) - Number released from custody convicted of rape.
(2) - Within 1 year of estimated release date.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

About FOI

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