Scottish Government
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Criminal Proceedings in Scotland 2013-14
A National Statistics Publication for Scotland.
The total number of people convicted in Scottish courts increased by four per cent to 105,549 in the year to 2013-14, according to National Statistics published by Scotland’s Chief Statistician today.
This is the first increase in convictions in seven years and has been primarily driven by rises in convictions for motor vehicle offences (up 14 per cent from 35,453 in 2012-13 to 40,258 in 2013-14). This tallies with an increase in the number of financial penalties imposed on those convicted in the year to 2013-14 (up 8 per cent to 57,812).
Convictions for non-sexual crimes of violence saw falls and, in particular, convictions for homicide and “attempted murder & serious assault” both declined by 20 per cent in the year to 2013-14 (down to 90 and 1,029 people respectively). By contrast number of people convicted for sexual crimes continued to rise with a 22 per cent increase overall (from 864 in 2012-13 to 1,053 in 2013-14). This follows similar trends to those seen in police recorded crime.
The number of convictions resulting in a custodial sentence fell by 5 per cent to 14,101 in 2013-14 however the average length of these sentences increased. Overall the average length of these sentences, excluding life sentences, was around nine and a half months in 2013-14, 3 per cent longer than in 2012-13 and 28 per cent longer than in 2005-06 (seven and a half months).
The average custodial sentence length for handling an offensive weapon has seen its ninth consecutive annual increase, rising by 7 per cent to 374 days (just over 12 months) in the year to 2013-14 – over three times higher than the average sentence length for the same crime in 2004-05.
In the past 10 years, the number of convictions for younger people has fallen at much faster rates than for older people. Convictions for people aged under 21 continued to fall in 2013-14 , a drop of 11 per cent to 10,613 people, despite the overall increase of 4 per cent in convictions for people of all ages.
The figures released today were produced by independent statistical staff free from any political interference, in accordance with professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
