Reconviction Rates in Scotland: 2022 to 2023 Offender Cohort

Introduction

This bulletin presents statistics on the number of people who are reconvicted in Scotland after a previous conviction. We define a reconviction as a conviction that happens within 12 months of someone being released from custody OR a conviction that happens within 12 months of someone being given a non-custodial sentence.

We present data for previous years for comparison to the most recent data. Care should be taken when comparing with the last two cohorts due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Court closures during 2020 to 2021 meant that reconviction statistics for both the 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 cohort have been impacted, either for the index conviction or the subsequent reconviction.

When someone is accused of a crime, there are three bodies who may deal with them, the Police, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and the courts. Figure 1 shows all the possible outcomes from the point of the police identifying someone accused of a crime, and the routes that are taken to reach those outcomes. The data in the publication is mostly concerned with people who are being reconvicted in courts, but there is a section on repeat non-court disposals from the police and COPFS.

Figure 1: An offender’s journey through the criminal system

(Source: Audit Scotland 2011 An overview of Scotland’s criminal justice system)

Note that this does not show Recorded Police Warnings that were introduced in 2016.