Journey times in the Scottish Criminal Justice System: analysis of equality factors of accused disposed in court
This paper investigates how the median journey times (from offence to verdict) for accused persons prosecuted in Scottish courts vary by their sex, age, ethnicity and socio-economic status (as measured by the Social Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD))
The Journey times in the Scottish Criminal Justice System publication[1] includes information on the median time from offence date to verdict date for all accused proceeded against in court.
The data presented in the Journey Times publication is based on Management Information received from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS). When referring to equality related factors, this paper follows the terminology and definitions used by those organisations.
This paper presents previously unpublished information analysing journey time by various equality factors. It uses data from April 2017 to March 2024. The paper explores differences in journey times by sex, age, ethnic group and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) 2020[2] group based on the accused’s postcode of residence. SIMD is the Scottish Government's standard measurement of deprivation in Scotland and the 2020 version of this tool is the most current version available. SIMD measures relative deprivation in a postcode area by considering seven domains: income, employment, education, health, access to services, crime and housing.
Whilst this analysis has identified differences in journey times 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 issues.
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