The projects will be included in the council’s commissioned research programme for 2019/20 and will help in the development of the council’s guideline on sentencing young people, which will go to public consultation later this year.

The council also plans to continue its work on sexual offences, commissioning further research and continuing its support of the Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences PhD internship scheme with a project in late autumn.

Professor Neil Hutton, chair of the SSC’s research committee, said: “The council is always keen to work with skilled researchers to ensure independent, high quality evidence is available to support our development of sentencing guidelines. We would encourage all those who may be interested in bidding for our future research projects to get in touch at to register their interest.”

In addition to the 2019/20 programme, three commissioned research projects are currently under way. These projects, which began in late 2018, include an in-depth exploration of public perceptions of sexual offences and death by driving offences (focusing both on the public generally and those directly affected by these offences), a survey of public attitudes to sentencing in general, and a review of academic literature on sentence discounting. 

These projects are expected to report back to the Council later this year, with final reports published thereafter.