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.
Footnotes
1 Prison-based social work thematic review.pdf
2 FRAME: building a framework for risk management
3 HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland: Annual Report 2005-2006
4 Early Release of Short-term Prisoner data | Scottish Prison Service
5 Returns to custody - Emergency Release Feb 2025.pdf
6 Written question and answer: S6W-34638 | Scottish Parliament Website
8 Inquiry into the harm caused by substance misuse in Scottish Prisons | Scottish Parliament
10 Secure care - Youth justice - gov.scot
12 Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 F1
13 Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 F2
14 Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 F3
15 Journeys to Harmful Behaviour — Probation Institute
16 Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 s.3(1)
17 Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 s.5(1)
18 Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 s.5(2)
19 Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 s.4(a)(iv)
24 FRAME: building a framework for risk management
25 The Level of Service/ Case Management Inventory (the LS/CMI) is a general offending assessment and management planning method used by all community and prison-based Justice Social Work services in Scotland. It helps assessors explore the pattern, nature and seriousness of a person’s offending along with a consideration of factors which may be associated with reoffending and range of non-offending issues, which may need to be addressed during a period of supervision or intervention.
26 See for example: Public attitudes to sentences following a guilty plea: findings from a mixed methods research project, Gormley, Roberts, Tata and Vega (March 2025) which found focus group participants’ views were “commonly related to release provisions, which could be conflated with sentence discounts/reductions…Few participants knew about the operation of the release provisions in detail, but this was still an area that came up as a key concern.” (p.19); Public perceptions of sentencing in Scotland, Qualitative research exploring sexual offences, Biggs, Reid, Attygalle, Vosnaki, McPherson and Tata (July 2021) which found “Survivors of sexual offences also perceived that even when a perpetrator is given a prison sentence, they are released before the full sentence is served, due to prison overcrowding or insufficient resources, rather than as part of a controlled and supported release in the community which takes into account public safety” (p. 72); and Reid, Biggs, Attygalle, Vosnaki, McPherson and Tata Public perceptions of sentencing in Scotland Qualitative research exploring causing death by driving offences (September 2020) which found “There was limited knowledge about the reasons why offenders were released before the end of their sentence, an area where providing additional information to the public and specifically to members of the family of victims during the criminal justice process, could be considered.” (p. 71)
27 Data, Research and Evidence | Scottish Prison Service
28 The Prisons and Young Offenders Institutions (Scotland) Amendment Rules 2025