Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 and Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 charges and convictions: FOI release

Information requested

1) The number of charges brought under Section 12 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 from 2010 until present.

2) The number of convictions under Section 12 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 from 2010 until present.

3) The number of charges brought under Section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 characterised or recorded as a course of conduct, rather than a single incident from 2010 until present.

4) The number of convictions under Section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 characterised or recorded as a course of conduct, rather than a single incident from 2010 until present.

Response

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

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.

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

Data on people prosecuted and convicted in Scottish courts is published as part of Criminal Proceedings in Scotland statistics. This data counts people by main charge. The main charge is the one that conferred the most severe penalty. Data are published by financial year, with the most recent publication covering the 10 years from 2014-15 to 2023-24. When a crime may be either a single incident or a course of conduct this is not distinguished in our data. Since data are by financial year and the most recent data are for 2023-24 we can only provide it for 2009-10 to 2023-24. Since our data counts people not charges we cannot provide data at charge-level. Since this data does not distinguish between a single incident and a course of conduct we cannot provide this breakdown.

The data we are able to provide is shown in the table below. In interpreting this data please bear in mind:

• There are no prosecutions under the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 in 2009-10 as this predates the implementation of the act and data from 2010-11 represents only a partial year under the act.
• Data from 2020-21 onwards were affected by the pandemic, including: court closures, reduced court capacities due to physical distancing measures, delays to cases where key participants were forced to self-isolate following positive COVID-19 tests and re-prioritisation of cases to deal with the resulting backlogs. Data from this period should not be considered indicative of long term trends.
• Data are by main charge, which is the charge that confers the most severe penalty.

Table People prosecuted and convicted in Scottish courts of a main charge under Section 12 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 or Section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, 2009-10 to 2023-24

	Section 12 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937		Section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010
	Prosecutions	Convictions	Prosecutions	Convictions
2009-10	163	124	.	.
2010-11	184	145	1,188	1,095
2011-12	182	153	8,049	6,999
2012-13	154	114	11,356	9,915
2013-14	170	124	13,749	11,661
2014-15	179	130	15,961	13,503
2015-16	157	124	16,838	14,220
2016-17	151	106	15,951	13,602
2017-18	123	94	14,011	12,168
2018-19	129	101	12,479	10,868
2019-20	102	79	11,802	10,400
2020-21	82	72	7,134	6,660
2021-22	122	101	9,922	8,814
2022-23	213	164	11,625	10,156
2023-24	152	121	10,599	9,475

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