Statistics in relation to individuals held on remand: FOI release

Information requested

1. How many prisoners are currently incarcerated on remand awaiting trial, who have been held on remand for more than 140 days?

2. In each of the last 10 years:
a. how many people have been held on remand for more than 140 days before trial?
b. what proportion of all individuals remanded were held on remand for more than 140 days before trial? (Please specify the method for allocating individuals to a year if their stay on remand spanned more than one year).

3. The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 explanatory notes on solemn procedure (section 79) state that: "the accused person must be liberated after 110 days, if no first diet has been held, and 140 days if such a diet has been held, unless the trial begins within that period. These periods can be extended by the court under section 65(5) of the 1995 Act." Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 - Explanatory Notes (legislation.gov.uk). For each of the last 10 years, please provide:
a. The number of people released at the expiration of 110 or 140 days under these rules.
b. The number of people held longer than this due to an extension granted by the court.
c. The number of applications for extension made to the court, the number granted, and the number denied.

4. For each of the last 10 years, please provide data on the distribution of different lengths of time spent on remand. Depending on what is available and the breakdowns you are able to provide, I am interested in, for example:
1. the number of people held on remand broken down by the number of days they were held on remand, and by whether they were awaiting trial or sentencing.
2. the average and maximum length spent on remand for all remand prisoners.
3. the average and maximum length spent on remand for those remanded before trial.
4. the average and maximum length spent on remand for those held more than 140 days before trial.

5. For each of the last 10 years:
a. How many prisoners remanded before trial were ultimately:
i. convicted? (and what proportion of those remanded before trial does this represent?)
ii. sentenced to custody? (and what proportion of those remanded before trial does this represent?)
a. How many prisoners remanded longer than 140 days before trial were ultimately:
i. convicted? (and what proportion of the population of those remanded longer than 140 days before trial did that group represent?)
ii. sentenced to custody? (and what proportion of the population of those remanded longer than 140 days before trial did that group represent?

Response

The Scottish Government have recently developed a longitudinal dataset from which the official statistics on the prison population in Scotland are derived. Using this dataset, we are able to provide information on some elements of your request which are provided in Annex A below. However, as noted in Annex A, we do not hold some of the information requested.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI - 202100259173 - Information Released - Annex A

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