Keith Brown

The reconviction rate, which is the percentage of offenders who are reconvicted in a year, was 28.3 per cent in 2018-19, which is a 1.9 percentage point increase from 26.4 per cent in 2017-18. The average number of reconvictions, a measure of how often offenders are reconvicted, also increased over the same period from 0.47 to 0.50, an increase of 6 per cent.

Over the longer term, in the decade between 2009-10 and 2018-19, the reconviction rate has decreased by 2.3 percentage points from 30.6 per cent to 28.3 per cent. In the same period, the average number of reconvictions per offender decreased by 11 per cent from 0.56 to 0.50.

As in previous years, males are reconvicted more often, on average, than females. In 2018-19, the average number of reconvictions per offender for males was 0.51, which was six per cent higher than the value of 0.48 for females. Both measures of reconvictions for males and females were higher than last year.

Justice Secretary Keith Brown said: “Our firm focus on prevention, effective community interventions and rehabilitation is working, with reconviction rates at one of the lowest levels recorded.

“Our Programme for Government is clear we should be working to change the way that imprisonment is used, while expanding community justice services which support community sentences and other interventions  that deliver real improvements.

“We have strengthened our financial commitment to community interventions, with the Scottish Budget for 2020/21 increasing investment in community justice services to more than £117 million, an increase of over £6.5 million compared to the previous financial year.

“Community sentencing makes individuals pay back to the community while addressing the underlying causes of their offending behaviour. And they work. These figures show those given short custodial sentences of one year or less are reconvicted nearly twice as often as those given Community Payback Orders.

“We remain fully committed to taking forward a range of actions focused on reducing offending including improving rehabilitation for those in custody and providing support to better help them reintegrate back into a Scotland safer and fairer for all.”