Reconviction Rates in Scotland: 2021-22 Offender Cohort

Comparing reconviction rates across local authorities

Local authority reconviction rates based on court area

Reconviction rates vary across local authority groups. The most reliable data on location comes from the location of the courts where the conviction took place. However, some sheriff courts cover more than one local authority and we cannot distinguish between convictions in the areas that one court covers. Therefore some local authorities are grouped together. Annex A16 has more details. Index convictions in the High Courts are presented separately from local authority groups. High Court index convictions were included in the local authority where the High Court was located prior to the 2016-17 cohort bulletin so the figures here are not comparable with earlier bulletins (see revisions in Annex B32 for further information).

• the highest reconviction rate in 2021-22 was for offenders whose index conviction was given in the courts in Inverclyde, where 31.9% of the cohort were reconvicted within a year
• excluding convictions in the High Court, the lowest reconviction rate was given in courts in Orkney Islands, 15.7% (it should be noted that there were only 51 offenders in the 2021-22 cohort in Orkney)
• these are unadjusted figures which do not take account of underlying differences in population size and the characteristics of offenders in each area

Figure 9: Inverclyde had the highest reconviction rate for the 2021-22 cohort

Reconviction rates by local authority based on court area, 2021-22 cohort

Local authority reconviction rates based on residence

Using the local authority of an offender’s residence may be more appropriate in some analyses than the local authority of the court. As discussed above, some courts cover more than one local authority, and in addition, some offenders may be tried in a court that is not the most local to them. We can use postcode data from police Scotland to determine which local authority offenders are resident in, however, this information is missing for many people (18% missing in 2021-22). This may be because some offenders have no fixed abode but it may also be a recording issue. Because of these issues, these data are considered ‘Official Statistics in Development’. Caution should be used in interpresting these figures.

• the highest reconviction rate in 2021-22 was for offenders with residence in South Ayrshire where 37.7% were reconvicted within a year
• the lowest reconviction rate in 2021-22 was for offenders resident in Orkney Islands
• as in the analysis by court location, the cohort in Orkney was very small (47 people in 2021-22)