Pre-pandemic figures for criminal justice social work out
Trends in court disposals involving criminal justice social work services are shown in the figures for 2019-20 published today by the Chief Statistician for Scotland. They cover the year which ended just as the pandemic lockdown began.
Diversion from prosecution cases commenced rose by 8% between 2018-19 and 2019-20 to around 2,000, similar to the high point reached in 2016-17. A total of 470 bail supervision cases (imposed where individuals are assessed as needing a level of supervision and support to meet their bail conditions) were also begun, a 40% increase on 2018-19 and the highest level in any of the last seven years.
The total number of criminal justice social work reports submitted rose by 4% to 28,400, 10% lower than in 2013-14.
Community payback orders commenced rose by 1% between 2018-19 and 2019-20 to 16,700, the first increase since 2015-16. Between 2013-14 and 2019-20, the prevalence of unpaid work or other activity requirements has fallen from 80% to 70% of all orders, while the prevalence of offender supervision has increased from 50% to 62%.
The successful completion rate for community payback orders was 69%. This rate has been around 70% since these orders were introduced and is consistently higher than the completion rates for the forms of order previously imposed.
There were 510 drug treatment and testing orders commenced in 2019-20, down 15% and the second lowest in the last seven years. The successful completion rate was 39%, around the same level as the previous two years.
The number of fiscal work orders commenced has fallen sharply in each of the last two years, down 76% overall from 1,030 in 2017-18 to 250 in 2019-20. Just under 80% of orders terminated in 2019-20 were successfully completed.