Rate of city crooks reoffending drops

The local authority area no longer tops the reoffending “league of shame”.

The Scottish Government statistics show that of the 1,857 people convicted of a crime in Dundee in 2014/15, 29.5% were convicted of another offence in the next year.

The rate is reduced from 32.8% for the previous year when the city had the jointhighest reoffending rate in Scotland, along with Clackmannanshire.

The council area now sits fifth in reoffending rates but is still above the national average.

Dundee-based Conservative MSP Bill Bowman, who represents the North East, said: “This report indicates that more is still needed to be done in order to stop offenders reoffending in Dundee — with approximately three in 10 reoffending.

“We believe it would be better to see every prisoner being given work and education, to give something back to society and increase chances of reintegration on the outside.”

However, SNP Justice Secretary Michael Matheson said t he figures, “showed that community sentences, including community payback orders, were more effective at cutting reoffending than short jail terms”.

While Dundee has dropped to fifth in the table, the local authority has had the highest reoffending rate in three of the last five years.

Using a second method to measure reoffending, the picture in Dundee looks slightly better.

This method measures the average number of reconvictions for every 100 offenders over the year.

In Dundee this rate stands at 49.9 — just slightly below the Scottish average of 50.

Across Scotland, 28.2% of the 43,634 people who were released from prison or given a non-custodial sentence, such as a community payback order or fine, in 2014/15, had a further conviction within a year.

The figure has dipped 0.3% from 2013/14, and now sits at an 18-year low.

Inverclyde tops the list with 32.0% and the area of East, North and South Ayrshire — grouped together due to court boundaries — is second with a 30.7% rate of reoffending.

THE rate of reoffending in Dundee — previously the highest in Scotland — has dropped, according to new figures.

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Mr Matheson