The Remand Population

The Legal status section has shown that the remand population (comprising those untried and those convicted awaiting sentence[i]) has remained stable from 2023-24. In this section we examine the (alleged) offence characteristics of that population.

Later chapters of this report discuss the average daily populations of Women in Custody and Young People in Custody. Further information on other age groups, as well as information on other characteristics (ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation,nationality) is available in the Supplementary tables M1 accompanying this release.

Further exploration of these data can be conducted through the interactive analytical tool at https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-prison-population-statistics/.

Remand index (alleged) offence groups

[Supplementary Tables M2]

The overall (average daily) remand population remained broadly stable between 2023-24 to 2024-25, with only small  fluctuations among index (alleged) offence[ii] groups (see Figure 12).

Figure 12: The average daily remand population remained high overall in 2024-25, with only small increases or decreases across the different offence groups

Remand offence groups – average daily populations, 2009-10 to 2024-25

In the context of overall stability, there was little difference between 2023-24 and 2024-25 in the average number of people remanded with index offences in group 1 (non-violent crimes of violence) (-19 to 917) and group 2 (sexual crimes) (-2 to 255).

From 2023-24 to 2024-25, there were some small increases amongst other index offence groups. Group 5 (crimes against society) and group 7 (miscellaneous offences) index offence remand populations increased by 19 (+5%) and 11 (+55%) to 384 and 30 respectively.The population with index offences in group 8 (road traffic offences) also increased slightly from 11 to 14 (+23%).

Remand index (alleged) offence categories

[Supplementary Tables M2]

This section provides a breakdown of the largest index offence groups in the (average daily) remand population into categories of index (alleged) offence[iii].

Group 1 – Non-sexual crimes of violence

Among the (average daily) population held on remand for alleged Group 1 (Non-sexual crimes of violence) offences in 2024-25, the largest index offence category was `Serious assault and attempted murder’. The  remand population accused of this index offence was 386 in 2024-25 (having increased by 17 from 369 in 2023-24). This index offence category made up 21% of the population on remand overall, and 42% of those accused of index offences in Group 1.

The population accused of ‘Common assault’ reduced by 10% in 2024-25 to 273 from 303 in 2023-24. Those accused of ‘Common assault’ comprised 15% of the  remand population in 2024-25. This is a reduction from 17% in 2023-24 .

The remand population accused of an index offence of ‘Robbery’ increased slightly between 2023-24 and 2024-25, from 103 to 106. The remand population accused of ‘Murder and culpable homicide’ fell by 3 over the same period to 60.

The remand population accused of index ‘Domestic Abuse offences’ fell slightly from 66 to 60 (-9%) between 2023-24 and 2024-25.

Group 2 – Sexual crimes

Among the (average daily) remand population accused of index Group 2 Sexual crimes, the largest group are those accused of  ‘Rape & attempted rape’. This group decreased from 159 in 2023-24 to 142 in 2024-25, comprising 56% of the remand population accused of Group 2 index offences and 8% of the remand population overall.

Those accused of ‘Sexual assault’ were the second largest population group amongst those accused of Group 2 index offences in 2024-25, increasing only slightly from 40 to 42 between 2023-24 and 2024-25.

Small increases were also observed between 2023-24 and 2024-25 in the remand populations accused of ‘Indecent photos of children’ (+6 to 19), ‘Communicating indecently’ (+5 to 20), and ‘Other sexual crimes’ (+1 to 16).

Group 5 – Crimes against society

42% of those in index offence group 5 had the index offence category ‘Drugs (supply)’. There was a 12% increase in this largest category (+17 to 163). ‘Crimes against public justice’ was the second largest at 34% of group 5 alleged offenders, remaining approximately static at 130 on an average day. There was a 5% decrease in the population accused of ‘Weapons possession’ (-5 to 78).

Other offence categories

Further information on the offence categories in Groups 3,4,6,7, and 8  is contained in the supplementary table (M2) and the Interactive Analysis Tool[iv].

All of these groups saw small from 2023-24. Together they comprised 13% of the remand population on an average day.