Prison population: information note - October 2025

Scotland is not alone in the UK in facing challenges with a high prison population. Despite the continuing action taken the recent increases in the prison population are placing significant and unsustainable pressure on the prison estate.

The prison population in Scotland has risen by 206 over the last 3 months (to 29 September 2025) and around 14% since the beginning of 2023. Whilst there is no single reason, there has been a significant rise in long term prisoners and an increase in length in sentencing. Between 2013 to 2014 and 2022 to 2023, the average length of a custodial sentence increased by 31%. Whilst there has been a longer-term trend away from shorter sentences, these still make up a notable proportion of the sentences given. This has all contributed to the critically high prison population that needs to be reduced. 

The Scottish Government has therefore announced that it will ask the Scottish Parliament to agree to an emergency early release process to support an immediate reduction in the prison population.

This means that some short term prisoners (serving under four years) due to be released within six months could be released earlier than their current release date. This will be done between November 2025 to April 2026.

Emergency early release is deemed necessary to ensure the prison service can maintain the security and good order of prisons and the health, safety and welfare of prisoners and prison staff.

Actions taken so far

The Scottish Government and partners have taken a range of actions to address and mitigate the rising prison population, including:

• through the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Act 2025 most short-term prisoners are now released from prison after serving 40% of their sentence, instead of 50%.
• we are optimising the use of Home Detention Curfew (HDC) and from October, the eligibility will be expanded to prisoners who have served 15% of their custodial sentence (down from 25%), and the maximum time prisoners can be released on an HDC licence will be increased to 210 days (from 180).
• increased investment by £25 million over the past two years to strengthen alternatives to custody across Scotland. The total funding for community justice this year is £159 million.
• increased investment to support the use of electronically monitored bail which is now available in every local authority.
• the Scottish Prison Service is maximising the use of space available within its estate and has expanded spaces by approximately 432 compared with the previous year.
• this investment is complemented by additional support to the third-sector to deliver community justice services. In 2025 to 2026, the Scottish Government committed £5.3 million to Upside, a new national throughcare service launched in April to support people leaving prison, including people on remand.
• an independent Sentencing and Penal Policy Commission has been established to review how custody and community-based interventions are used, with a focus on reducing crime, supporting rehabilitation, and ensuring a sustainable prison population. Final recommendations will be delivered by the end of 2025 and will inform longer term action in this area. 

Despite the range of actions taken the recent increases in the prison population are placing significant and unsustainable pressure on the prison estate, prison staff, and other service providers working in prisons, including healthcare, social work and other public and third sector services.

Emergency Early Release

The Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 introduced the ability for Scottish Ministers to instruct the early release of specified groups of prisoners where it is "necessary and proportionate" to do so in response to: the effects an emergency situation is having or is likely to have on a prison or prisons generally; to protect the security and good order of prisons; or to protect the health, safety and welfare of prisoners and staff. This enables the release of certain prisoners up to 180 days early over a period of up to six months.  

With Parliament’s approval, this power was used last year to instruct the release of eligible short term prisoners during June and July 2024. There was a specified set of criteria, and 477 prisoners were released early.

Ministers have proposed to Parliament that the emergency early release process will run from November 2025 to April 2026. Releases would take place in tranches, three fortnightly tranches in November to December, followed by four monthly tranches between January and April.

This arrangement will provide greater certainty for those who are eligible to be released, ensure pre-release planning between the Scottish Prison Service and community partners can take place, mitigate the impacts of the release process on community and public services, facilitate the notification of any individual registered with the Victim Notification Scheme in relation to a prisoner whose release date is changed and ensure releases happen timeously to reduce the prison population.

In the first three fortnightly tranches over November and December 2025, approximately 440 prisoners could be released.  Around 550 could be released over the remaining four monthly tranches from January to April 2026, with the January release likely to be larger than the others.

However, these are estimates only as the overall number is subject to change due to daily changes in the prison population and will depend on how many individuals are vetoed by Prison Governors.The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) will publish all final release information.

Releases and safeguards

Protecting victims and public safety remains an absolute priority – that is why our proposal for emergency early release has specific safeguards built in, including exclusions for life sentence prisoners, registered sex offenders, and for those serving a sentence following conviction of a domestic abuse offence or aggravation.

The scheme is only for prisoners serving sentences of less than four years, who are due to be released within 180 days of release points between November 2025 and April 2026. A full exclusion list is below.

Any release under these proposals is subject to a veto that can be applied by the Governor in Charge or deputy Governor, if the Governor is unavailable for a period of time. Where they consider that a prisoner poses an immediate risk of harm to an identified person, or group, they would not be released.

Victim Notification

The Victim Notification Scheme (VNS) is a statutory opt-in scheme which enables victims to receive information (including the date of release) about the offender in their case. 

The Victim Notification Scheme will apply to emergency early releases as it does ordinarily. A victim decides for themselves if they wish to join the scheme or not.

Both the Victim Notification Scheme (where the prisoner is sentenced to 18 months or more in prison) and the Victim Information Scheme (VIS) for victims where the prisoner is sentenced to under 18 months, provides a right for a victim to receive the release date of the prisoner in their case. This means that victims who are registered to receive information under either scheme will be advised of a new release date if the prisoner in their case is released under the emergency early release scheme.

The Scottish Prison Service VNS team, which provides information to victims under the VNS, always aims to advise victims of the date of a prisoner’s release before the release occurs.

For victims not currently registered on the VNS or VIS, they can give their consent to a Victim Support Organisation (VSO) to get information about the prisoner’s release date on their behalf. Those organisations are Victim Support Scotland, ASSIST, Rape Crisis Scotland and Children First.

UK powers

The UK Government have had an emergency release power in law since the early 1980s which is broader than the power Scottish Ministers have as a result of the 2023 Act and provides that the Secretary of State can order the release of certain prisoners up to six months earlier if they are satisfied that it is necessary to do so in order to make best use of the places available for detention. This power has been used by UK Government previously in 2023 and 2024 and is not subject to Parliamentary approval.

The following exclusions would apply for the proposed release:

• life sentenced prisoners (including Order of Lifelong Restriction)
• remand prisoners
• terrorist prisoners
• individuals serving extended sentences
• individuals subject to supervised release orders
• individuals subject to the sex offenders notification requirements
• individuals liable for removal from the UK or subject to extradition
• individuals serving a sentence for an offence aggravated by involving abuse of a partner or ex-partner of the prisoner under Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 (2016 Act)
• individuals serving sentences following conviction under Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 (2018 Act), or the Domestic Abuse (protection) (Scotland) Act 2021 (the 2021 Act)
• individuals who have previously served a sentence of imprisonment following conviction under the 2018 Act or an offence aggravated under the 2016 Act will also be automatically prevented from being released, provided their conviction is not spent. If their conviction becomes spent during the release process they may be released as part of the release process.
• individuals who are subject to a non-harassment order
• long term prisoners serving sentences of four years or longer
• anyone sentenced on or after 28 March 2026