Reconviction Rates in Scotland: 2021-22 Offender Cohort

Repeat non-court disposals

This section provides statistics on the repeat numbers of non-court disposals for individuals within a year after they were given an initial non-court disposal. This section does not include convictions and reconvictions dealt with in court, as the non-court dataset is independent of the court convictions dataset.

The cohort for non-court disposals is defined as the group of people who receive a non-court disposal, such as a fine or warning, from the police or COPFS in a given financial year. The first non-court disposal in the year is counted as the index non-court disposal, and subsequent non-court disposals given to the individuals within a year are counted as repeat non-court disposals.

Repeat non-court disposal rates have overall decreased, but less severely than reconviction rates in section 1. Although we are unable to say for certain, this may be due to non-court disposals being less impacted by the pandemic as they were unaffected by court closures and social distance restrictions on court proceedings.

Police disposals

• the repeat non-court disposal rate for all police disposals in 2021-22 was 17%

The police are able to issue several types of non-court disposal:

Anti-social Behaviour Fixed Penalty Notices (ASBFPNs) These are typically given for offences like drunken behaviour and playing loud music.

• the repeat non-court disposal rate for ASBFPNs was 18.1% for the 2021-22 cohort, compared with 27.7% for the 2020-21 cohort
• the average number of repeat non-court disposals per individual for ASBFPNs decreased by 44% from 0.48 in 2020-21 to 0.27 in 2021-22 (Table 15)

Recorded Police Warnings (RPWs) are given for minor offences where a warning letter is issued to the individual. RPWs replaced Formal Adult Warnings in January 2016.

• the repeat non-court disposal rate for RPWs was 14.7% for the 2021-22 cohort, down from 17.3% the previous year
• the average number of repeat non-court disposals per individual was 0.2

Actions which are used specifically for juveniles (aged 8 to 17) are Restorative Justice Warnings and Early and Effective Interventions (EEIs).

• there were 4,036 EEIs and 227 restorative justice warnings given to the 2021-22 cohort of offenders
• the repeat non-court disposal rate for EEIs was 24.9% for the 2021-22 cohort, a small increase from 23% for the 2020-21 cohort
• the average number of repeat non-court disposals per individual with an EEI increased by 9.5% from 0.42 in 2020-21 to 0.46 in 2021-22

There are further options available to the police that we are not able to provide data on, such as conditional offers of a fixed penalty notice for motor vehicle offences. Also note that fixed penalty notices for Covid restriction offences are not included in this publication. More information is available in Annex D of the latest Criminal Proceedings Bulletin.

Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS)

• the repeat non-court disposal rate for COPFS disposals was 11% for the 2021-22 cohort

There are a number of measures that can be taken by COPFS:

Fiscal fines of between £50 and £500.

• there were 10,012 individuals given a fiscal fine in 2021-22. Of these, 18.7% were given a further non-court disposal in the following 12 months
• the average number of repeat non-court disposals per individual with a fiscal fine was 0.25

Compensation orders of up to £5,000.

Fiscal Fixed Penalty between £50 and £300, generally issued for motor vehicle offences.

Fiscal warnings.

Characteristics of individuals given non-court disposals

• males made up almost three quarters of the 2021-22 cohort of people given non-court disposals
• 14.5% of males and 11.9% of females in the cohort had a further non-court disposal in the following year
• the highest rate of repeat non-court disposal was in those aged under 21 where 19.9% had a repeat non-court disposal
• table 19 shows in more detail which combinations of age, sex and index disposal had the highest rates of repeat non-court disposal