Breaches of community payback order statistics: FOI release

Information requested

The number of breaches of community payback orders by age bracket for the years 2021/22, 2022/23, and 2024/25 and the number of people who breached a community payback order and were recorded as committing another offence following this in the years 2021/22, 2022/23, and 2024/25. You later clarified that you were looking for information for year 2023/24 instead of 2024/25.

Response

We are able to supply the information on breaches of community payback orders (CPOs) by age bracket for the years 2021/22, 2022/23, and 2023/24 and enclose a copy of this as follows.

Community payback orders revoked due to breach by age group, 2021-22 to 2023-24 [note 1]

Age group [note 2]	2021-22 [note 3]	2022-23	2023-24
Total	1,364	1,762	2,103
16-17	28	28	16
18-20	157	152	184
21-25	284	319	372
26-30	278	392	397
31-40	443	578	737
Over 40	174	293	397

Source: Scottish Government Justice Social Work datasets
[1] Information is not collected on the overall number of confirmed breaches, only on whether an order was revoked due to breach.
[2] Age at the time the order was imposed.
[3] Statistics in year 2021-22 were impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic. Caution is advised in comparing data in this year to other years.

We do not have data on the number of people who breached their CPO and went on to commit another offence. However, the most recent published data from Reconviction Rates in Scotland: 2020-21 Offender Cohort shows that of the 4,369 individuals who were given a CPO in 2020-21, 1,219 (28%) were convicted for another offence within a year. Please note that the number of reconvictions will be lower than the number of reoffences, as not every offence results in a conviction in court. Statistics for 2020-21 were substantially impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic and therefore caution is advised in interpreting data for that year.

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