Nearly 2,000 offenders escaped prosecution

The number of people escaping prosecution for minor offences has more than doubled since 2010-11, new figures have revealed.

Last year, prosecutors referred 1,980 people to criminal justice social work teams as part of their “diversion from prosecution” scheme, rather than taking them to court, up from 958 in 2010-11.

Scottish Government figures which revealed the rise also showed about two-thirds (67.5 per cent) of community payback orders (CPOS) were successfully completed in 2016-17 – down from 71.7 per cent three years ago.

Scottish Conservatives said that meant more than 6,000 offenders had failed to complete their sentence last year as they called on justice secretary Michael Matheson to rethink plans to abolish prison terms of less than a year.

Less than half (44.1 per cent) of drug treatment and testing orders (DTTOS) were successfully completed in 2016-17, a drop of about ten percentage points from the 54.8 per cent achieved in 2014-15.