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Publication - Statistics

Safer Communities and Justice Statistics Monthly Data Report: September 2025

Published
25 September 2025
From
Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, +4 more … Minister for Victims and Community Safety, Lord Advocate, Chief Statistician, Director-General Education and Justice
Directorate
Safer Communities Directorate, +2 more … Justice Directorate, Children and Families Directorate
Topic
Communities and third sector, Law and order, Public safety and emergencies

This report contains summary statistics covering a number of important justice and safer communities areas. It is updated with the most recently published statistics.

Part of

Supporting documents

Number of prosecutions and convictions in 2022-23 demonstrated the continued recovery of the justice system following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of people convicted in Scottish courts rose by 15% from 2021-22 to 68,067 but remain below a typical pre-pandemic year.

Chart 9: Number of people convicted in Scottish courts – 2013-14 to 2022-23

Chart 9 - People convicted in court, 2013-14 to 2022-23 Annual number of people convicted in Scottish courts, as reported by the Scottish Government's criminal proceedings data, 2013-14 to 2022-23. There has been a general decrease over the decade apart from recovery during the pandemic period.

Note: Data from 2020-21 and 2021-22 are affected by the Covid pandemic and should not be considered indicative of long term trends.

Rise in convictions across all groups between 2021-22 and 2022-23. Convictions for non-sexual crimes of violences rose by the most (up 23%) followed by miscellaneous offences (up 22%). These were among four groups which were higher than their pre-pandemic (2019-20) levels in 2022-23. Crimes of dishonesty (up 8%) and sexual crimes (up 10%) rose by the least proportionately. Convictions for crimes under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act increased by 11%, from 690 convictions in 2021-22 to 763 convictions in 2022-23.

Rise in numbers of community sentences issued and new high in proportion of sentences in 2022-23. The number of community sentences in court rose by 15% between 2021-22 and 2022-23, from 14,139 to 16,246, in line with the overall rise in convictions. The proportion of all convictions resulting in a community sentence rose to 24%, the highest in the past decade.

Average custodial sentence exceeds one year. For those who are convicted in court and sentenced to custody, the average sentence in 2022-23 was over twelve months (386 days) in length. This was 3% longer than in 2021-22, and 31% longer than the average of 295 days in 2013-14. The proportion of people receiving a sentence of less than one year remained at 73% in 2022-23, the lowest proportion of the last decade.

Community payback orders slightly more likely to have supervision than unpaid work. There were 15,100 community payback orders imposed in 2023-24. This was 3% higher than in 2022-23 but still 10% lower than in 2019-20. In 2023-24, 68.0 per cent were issued with an unpaid work requirement, while slightly more (68.2 per cent) were issued with a supervision requirement.

Chart 10: Community payback orders imposed – percentage of orders with different requirements, 2023-24

Chart 10 - Community payback order requirements, 2023-24 Percentage of community payback orders with the different requirements, as reported in the annual justice social work data, 2023-24. The highest percentages are for the offender supervision and the unpaid work or other activity requirements.

*New* Reconviction rates are still yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, but have increased  over the last few years. The overall reconviction rate for the 2021-22 cohort was 27.1%, almost the same as the rate for the 2020-21 cohort (27.0%) Data is still likely to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but to a lesser extent than the previous year.

*New* The average number of reconvictions per offender has decreased over time. The average number of reconvictions per offender was 14% lower in 2021-22 compared to 2012-13.  The largest decrease in average number of reconvictions was for those aged between 31 and 40, a decrease of 16% since 2012-13.

Chart 11: Average reconvictions per offender by age, 2012-13 and 2021-22 cohorts

Chart 11 - Average number of reconvictions, 2012-13 & 2021-22. Average number of reconvictions within a year of being given a non-custodial sentence or being released from a custodial sentence : breakdown by age group, 2012-13 and 2021-22. The 2012-13 averages are higher than 2021-22.

Number of children referred to SCRA on offence grounds fell by nine per cent in the last year. Statistics published by the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA) show that, in 2024-25, 2,447 children were referred to the reporter on offence grounds. This constitutes a fall of 9% from 2023-24 and is 11% lower than in 2015-16.

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