Deaths in Prison Custody in Scotland 2012-2022

8. Deaths in custody by legal status

The majority of deaths in custody occurred in the sentenced population. Over the period 2012-13 to 2021-22, around 76% of deaths in custody were amongst those who were serving a custodial sentence. This pattern has varied across individual years, as shown in Figure 11.

Rate of death in custody by legal status

The large difference in size between these population groups means rates need to be applied for comparison between them and over time. Due to the counting conventions applied in the production of the national statistics, it is only possible to make such comparisons using the average daily populations of remand and sentenced prisoners (Figure 12).

The rate of death by average daily population in custody by legal status has varied over time. The rate across the remand population spiked between 2015-16 and 2018-19 and was considerably higher than that for the sentenced population. However, the rate of death increased substantially in the sentenced population across 2020-21 and 2021-22. Coupled with a decline in rate in the remand population this has meant that the rate of death in the sentenced population has surpassed that in the remand population since 2020-21.