Journey times in the Scottish Criminal Justice System: analysis of equality factors of accused disposed in court

This occasional paper presents new exploratory analysis on an accused person’s criminal justice journey time from offence date to verdict date in court by various equality related factors. It uses information from the Criminal Journey Times in the Scottish Justice System[1] publication from April 2017 to March 2024. The analysis explores how the length of an accused person’s justice journey time varies depending on their sex, age, ethnic group and socio-economic status. This analysis only relates to accused proceeded against in court and does not cover accused who leave the justice system at earlier points.

Whilst this initial exploratory analysis has identified differences in an accused person’s journey time based on equality factors it has not explored why these differences occur. For example, crime type may be a key determinant of an accused person’s journey time.  Future supplementary multivariate analysis will aim to explore this and other factors, to determine if the differences reported in this paper can be explained further by controlling for factors such as crime type.

In general the analysis shows that:

• There are significant differences in an accused person’s median criminal justice journey times based on sex, age, ethnic group and socio-economic status.

• Journey times are longer for accused females than for accused males.

• Journey times are longer for younger accused people (under 25 years) than for the other age groups.

• Journey times for accused in the Other White British and Other White groups are significantly shorter than for all other ethnic groups.

• Journey times for the accused in the Asian ethnic group are significantly longer than for all the other ethnic groups.

• Journey times are longer for accused living in the 20% most deprived Scottish postcodes compared to those from the least deprived 20% postcodes.