FOI/202600516396 · FOI · released
Custodial sentences of four years or more: FOI release
Information requested
You asked for annual counts of convictions in Scotland, by sex and gender, from 2012/13 to 2023/24 inclusive, disaggregated by:
1) offenders main offence category (detailed offence groups used in Criminal Proceedings tables),
2) by offender age in 5-year bands from 20-24 to 75-79 (or 80+) by custodial sentence length: 4 to under 10 years, and 10 years or over.
Please provide the data in Excel or CSV format.
I am content for very small cells to be suppressed where required for disclosure control
Response
I enclose a copy of all of the information you requested in the format (MS Excel) you asked for.
Some important background for interpreting this data are laid out below.
Data on people prosecuted and convicted in Scottish courts is published as Criminal Proceedings in Scotland. The most recent data are for the financial year 2023-2024. This data set counts people by main charge. The main charge is the one that conferred the most severe penalty. As per your request, the enclosed data includes the crime category to which the main charge belongs. It should be noted, however, that there may have been additional convicted charges and these may be categorised in a different crime category. Additionally, as per your request, data are further broken down by sentence length bands. It should be noted that these cover determinate sentences only, and hence exclude indeterminate sentences. Indeterminate sentences are Life sentences and Orders for Lifelong Restriction. Finally, data from 2020-21 onwards were affected by the pandemic, including: court closures, reduced court capacities due to physical distancing measures, delays to cases where key participants were forced to self-isolate following positive COVID-19 tests and re-prioritisation of cases to deal with the resulting backlogs. Data from this period should not be considered indicative of longterm trends.
About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.