Following the launch of the consultation on proposals to change the point of release for long term prisoners on 8 July 2024, the consultation report was published on 10 October 2024. On the same day, the Cabinet Secretary made a Statement to Parliament. As she had been warned, the prison population had quickly returned to pre-emergency release levels.

A report published on 2 September 2024 on the Early Release of Prisoner and Prescribed Victim Supporters (Scotland) Regulations 2024 is available here. It showed that 477 people were released under the emergency release regulations, with Governors having vetoed 171 of those initially identified.

A further report published on 2 October 2024 showed that of the 477 released prisoners, 57 (12%) of them had been returned to prison having been accused/convicted of further offending. (This is lower than the ‘normal’ rate of reoffending over a similar time period.) The average time in the community was between 2 and 61 days, with an average time length of 22 days.

On the day of the Parliamentary Statement the population stood at 8,322, against an operating target of 8,007. The Cabinet Secretary thus advised that in November 2024 she would be introducing new proposals to move the point of automatic release for short-term prisoners from 50% to 40% in the expectation that this would immediately reduce the population by between 260 and 390 people and would continue to do so in a sustainable way. She also advised that HDC GPS technology would be introduced in January 2025 (subject to Parliamentary approval).

The Cabinet Secretary’s statement was followed by one from the Lord Advocate (Dorothy Bain KC) who advised that she would be issuing short-term guidance to sentencers making decisions regarding bail and remand. The guidance does not apply to those involved in allegations of domestic abuse or sexual violence. Much of it appeared to reflect points that we had made previously about the importance of information being made available to sentencers at the point of setting bail and discouraging automatic objections to it by the Crown. Bail reviews are to be encouraged alongside a full roll-out of the successful Summary Case Management pilot which was launched at Dundee, Hamilton and Paisley Sheriff Courts and before being extended to Glasgow and Perth.