Supported victims

Criminal justice services changes
We are beginning to see the benefits of a new process that allows officers to interview people at one of 129 police stations across Scotland, rather than custody centres.

This simple change to process for lower-level crimes has saved officers thousands of hours since it was introduced in November last year and has also reduced pressure on our custody centres.

The new summary case management process continues to roll out, most recently in Aberdeenshire, and is following the path of the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability which enables us to share evidence with COPFS efficiently and securely.

Officers are seeing a significant reduction in police and public witness citations, cases brought to court more quickly and an increase in early guilty pleas. These changes free up officers to spend more time carrying out their duties in our communities and provide resolution for victims and witnesses much more quickly.

These changes are the result of strong partnership working. I do recognise that we cannot make improvements to the criminal justice system in isolation and we need to play our part as well.

On Wednesday, 30 April, we brought together community justice partners to launch a new arrest referral process which enables referrals for individuals in police custody to support services such as substance use and mental health services. Our aim is to identify underlying causes of offending and make referrals with a view to reducing reoffending in our communities.