Criminal Justice Social Work Statistics, 2010-11

Scotland’s Chief Statistician today published Criminal Justice Social Work Statistics, 2010-11. This provides statistics at a national level on activity relating to community penalties in Scotland.

Key findings:

There was an across-the-board fall in the number of social work orders commenced, with each of Community Service Orders (CSOs), Probation Orders (POs), Supervised Attendance Orders (SAOs) and Drug Treatment and Testing Orders (DTTOs) falling between 2009-10 and 2010-11.

The total of these orders fell from 19,900 to 18,000, with separate data sources suggesting that approximately an additional 330 of the new Community Payback Orders (CPOs) commenced in February and March 2011.

The overall number of breaches of social work orders fell by 4 per cent from 8,200 in 2009-10 to 7,900 in 2010-11.
This was mainly driven by falls of 8 and 4 per cent respectively in the number of breaches of CSOs and POs.

The number of DTTO breaches increased by 16 per cent from 200 to 230.The number of successful completions of social work orders remained unchanged from the previous year in 2010-11, at 11,300.

This was balanced out by decreases of 4 and 10 per cent respectively in CSOs and SAOs and increases of 9 per cent in both POs and DTTOs.

Overall, 64 per cent of all terminations of social work orders in 2010-11 were due to successful completion, the highest in any of the last eight years.

In 2010-11, this proportion was highest for CSOs (74 per cent) and lowest for DTTOs (45 per cent).

Tables at community justice area and local authority area level, which have been updated to include 2010-11, are also available on the Scottish Government website.