Short-term prisoner release point: responses to targeted consultation
The Scottish Government ran a targeted consultation seeking views on changing the automatic early release point for certain short-term prisoners. The responses to the targeted consultation have been published where permission has been given to publish the response.
Short-term prisoner release point: responses to targeted consultation
The Scottish Government ran a targeted consultation on proposals to change the automatic early release point for certain short-term prisoners. Following the changes made by the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Act 2025, most short-term prisoners are released after serving 40% of their sentence. The targeted consultation sought views on proposals to change that release point so that those eligible are instead released after serving 30% of their sentence.
The consultation ran between 3 February and 9 February 2026. There were 28 responses received and list of respondents is included at Annex A. Where permission has been given, the responses to the targeted consultation are published in this paper.