Population Transitions and Out-Flows

This section of the report examines transitions within, and departures from, custody in the reporting year. Individuals can enter custody with any one of the legal statuses (untried, convicted awaiting sentence, or sentenced), and may transition through other statuses before departing[i]. For the custodial ‘journeys’ captured in the cellWise data, it is possible to measure and report overall time in custody, as well as time spent with a remand status before a remand-only departure or first transition to the sentenced population. Where available, the reasons for an individuals’ release is provided in the section Liberations.

Departures and transitions

[Supplementary Tables C1, O2, O3 & O4]

Departures from custody[ii] increased by 2.2% in 2023-24, from 11,111 in 2023-24 to 11,357 in 2024-25. Arrivals to prison remain at a higher volume, contributing to the rise in the prison population in the most recent year.

An individual can enter and leave custody multiple times in a year. Over 9,100 individuals departed prison one or more times in 2024-25 – an increase of 2.5% from the previous year (see Figure 28).

Figure 28: Departures have increased in 2024-25 but remain lower than pre-pandemic levels

Number of departures, and unique individuals departing, 2009-10 to 2024-25

Around 42% of departures in 2024-25 were from remand.  This is lower than the previous two reporting years (47%).  Fifty eight per cent of departures in 2024-25 were from the sentenced population.

The number of remand departures decreased by around 7% in 2024-25, from 5,125 in 2023-24 to 4,768. Departures from sentenced status increased (+10% from 5,892) to 6,481 in 2024-25.

There were 4,456 transitions[iii] from remand to sentenced status in 2024-25 - around 9% more than in 2023-24 (4,090) but still 10% fewer than pre-pandemic (4,966 in 2019-20). (This accounts only for the first transition to sentenced status made by individuals during a continuous period of occupancy. See the Technical Manual for more information.[iv])

Custodial journeys

[Supplementary Table C1 & interactive analysis tool]

Figure 29 shows the number of departures by custodial journey type[v]. Journey types represent the progress through the legal status hierarchy[vi] in the course of an occupancy period, from untried (U), convicted awaiting sentence (A) to sentenced (S). Custodial journeys vary depending on legal status on arrival and whether or not the individual transitions between legal statuses before departing. Some individuals enter and leave custody having had the same legal status for the duration of their time served/ held. These are represented as U__, _A_ or __S in the chart below. Others enter custody with one legal status and transition to another before leaving. For example, an individual may enter as untried, progress to convicted awaiting sentence and then subsequently sentenced. This particular journey type would be UAS in the chart below.

Figure 29: Departures from a sentenced status have increased in volume, while remand only journeys have decreased

Departures by Journey Type, 2009-10 to 2024-25

There was a marginal increase in the number of departures overall in 2024-25 compared with the previous year (+246 to 11,357). Only post-sentence departure journey types increased notably in this period:

• Sentenced only journeys (“__S”) increased by 13% to 2,351 (+277)
• Convicted awaiting sentence to sentenced (“_AS”) journeys increased by 21% to 1,124 (+197)
• Untried then sentenced journeys (“U_S”) increased 4% to 2,083 (+78)
• Untried, CAS then sentenced journeys (“UAS”) also increased by 4% to 923 (+37)

Single remand status journeys (“U__” and “_A_”) both fell in volume by 10% to 3,072 (-327) and 3% to 1,197 (-34) respectively. “UA_” type journeys stayed approximately the same from the previous year, going from 495 in 2023-24 to 499 (+4) in 2024-25.

Time on remand

[Supplementary Tables O2]

Time on remand[vii] can be measured when an individual departs custody without a sentencing warrant in that occupancy period, or when they transition from a remand status to the sentenced population for the first time[viii] in an occupancy period.

As shown in Figure 30, the median time taken for an individual to depart custody from remand has remained at a similar level since 2009-10. In 2024-25 the median time to departure from remand was 22 days. The longest periods spent on remand had increased over time. In 2017-18, 90% of remand departures had occurred within 63 days. This peaked in 2022-23, with the longest 10% of stays before departure from remand taking 146 days or more. In 2024-25 this had fallen to 87 days or more.

The time taken to transition from a remand status to the sentenced population is longer on average than time to depart from remand. The median number of days to transition was broadly stable from 2009-10 to 2018-19, before rising slightly in 2019-20. This rose further during the pandemic, peaking at 57 days in 2020-21 and 2021-22. In 2024-25 it had fallen to 43 days.

As with departures, the longest periods to transition from remand to sentenced had been increasing over time. In 2019-20, 90% of transitions occurred within 145 days. Time to transition peaked in 2022-23 with 90% of transtions occurring within 289 days. By 2024-25 this had fallen to 275 days.

Figure 30: Reductions to the time to remand departure or transition to sentenced continue with the longest departures and the median transition reaching post-pandemic lows in 2024-25

Days on remand by destination – transition to the sentenced population or departure to the community – median and 90th percentile days, 2009-10 to 2024-25

Liberations

Leaving remand

[Supplementary Tables O4]

The overall volume of departures from remand decreased by 7% between 2023-24 and 2024-25, from 5,125 to 4,768.

The number of those with court or procurator fiscal liberations decreased 8%, from 4,031 in 2023-24 to 3,689 in 2024-25, and accounted for 77% of remand departures. In 2019-20, these liberations accounted for 89% of remand departures.

In 2019-20, 528 remand departures were liberated to bail, but in 2020-21 this increased almost threefold to 1,544 (Figure 31) before decreasing in 2022-23 to 1,000. In 2024-25 this decreased further to 910, remaining higher than in pre-pandemic years.

Figure 31: Transitions from remand increased in 2024-25, while liberations at court fell

Number of transitions and departures from remand by liberation type, 2009-10 to 2024-25

The time to departure varies depending on the type of liberation. Figure 32 shows the median and 90th percentile days on remand by liberation type.

Median time to liberation from remand by the courts or procurator fiscal was stable at around 25 days in 2024-25 (+1). The 90th percentile continued to fall, from a high of 164 days in 2022-23 to 95 days in 2024-25. This is below the pre-pandemic level of 101 days.

The median time to liberation to bail has stayed constant between 2019-20 and 2024-25 at 8 days. However, 10% of those liberated to bail remained in custody for 114 days or more in 2021-22 and 115 days or more in 2020-21, compared with just 30 days or more in 2019-20. In 2022-23 this 90th percentile level fell back down to 49 days and in 2024-25 it was 41 days.

Days on remand until transition is described in the section Time on remand.

Figure 32: The longest liberations by courts and to bail have shortened in 2024-25

Days on remand for transitions to the sentenced population and departures by liberation type, median and 90th percentile, 2009-10 to 2024-25

Sentenced liberations

[Supplementary Tables O4]

As discussed in the section Departures and transitions, the overall volume of sentenced departures increased by around 2% in 2024-25 from the previous year. This was driven by a 10% increase in recorded liberations[ix] from the sentenced population (from 5,790 in 2023-24 to 6,359 in 2024-25).

Figure 33 shows the breakdown by liberation type.

Liberations recorded as ‘sentence served’ fell by 8% in 2024-25, from 3,998 to 3,693. Liberations to conditional release (on licence, parole or home detention curfew) increased by 33% from 1,040 in 2023-24 to 1,380 in 2024-25.

Liberations by the court or procurator fiscal fell from 326 to 321 over the same time period. There was a small increase in liberations to bail, from 63 in 2023-24 to 67 in 2024-25. These liberation types, generally associated with remand prisoners, may indicate individuals moving from sentenced to remand prior to departure, as discussed in Legal status discrepancies.

Figure 33: Sentenced liberations other than Sentenced Served increased in 2024-25

Number of departures from sentenced status by liberation type, 2009-10 to 2024-25

477 liberations as a result of Early Release took place in 2024-25. Excluding these liberations, the number of departures from sentenced status would still have increased, though by only 2%. Early release liberations are included in the category “All Others” in Figure 33.

Also included in this group are liberations as a result of immigration/deportation. This category of liberation has increased in number over time from a low of 88 in 2021-22 to 252 in 2024-25 – its highest recorded level to date.

Statutory throughcare departures

[Supplementary Tables P2]

In this section we provide the number of individuals departing from an occupancy period associated with a Supervised Release Order[x] (SRO) or extended sentence[xi] flag, as shown in Figure 34.

Comparing these counts with the number of community commencements reported in Justice Social Work statistics[xii] provides reassurance that estimates in this release are broadly in line with expected counts.

The number of individuals departing with extended sentence orders have fallen from a peak of 218 in 2013-14 (2.3% of sentenced departures). Extended sentence departures fell significantly over the intervening period (hitting a low of 89 in both 2019-20 and 2021-22), in 2024-25 this count increased to 140 departures (2.1%).

Comparing these figures with the information provided by Justice Social Work statistics we see that the trends track each other closely, although there is some degree of variation between the two counts.

Figure 34: Community Commencements of Extended and SRO sentences broadly align to individuals departing sentenced each year 2015-16 to 2024-25

Comparing Justice Social Work (JSW) Statistics and Prison Population Statistics (SPPS) between 2015-16 and 2024-25

The number of individuals departing custody with a Supervised Release Order (SRO) peaked at 355 in 2016-17, when they comprised 3.7% of departures. The reduced number of departures overall in 2022-23 meant that the smaller number of such releases (302) accounted for a greater proportion of those entering the community from sentenced (5.5%). In 2024-25 this count increased to 342 individuals departing custody, the highest level since 2016-17, and made up 5.2% of sentenced individual departures.

Comparing these figures with the number of community commencements each year, we observe a systematic over-estimate in the prison data. For more information see the Technical Manual[xiii].