Remand can quickly destabilise people's lives.
Accommodation can be lost within days where tenancies are already fragile. Communication with landlords breaks down. Arrears increase. Employment ends abruptly. Family contact reduces.
Access to services in custody is also restricted for those on remand. People describe being unable to access education, work programmes, opticians or dentistry. Income opportunities are limited and no liberation grant is available on release. Healthcare can be delayed, particularly where medication reviews or specialist appointments are required. Remand status also restricts access to certain activities available to sentenced prisoners, limiting opportunities for meaningful engagement during custody.
One woman we work with told us about being held on remand for 18 months with so little income that she felt forced to sell her mental health medication to survive. Others described being remanded and later receiving a non-custodial sentence. By that stage, accommodation had already been terminated and treatment disrupted.
Even relatively short periods in custody can destabilise recovery. Interruptions to substance use treatment or mental health support increase the likelihood of relapse or crisis. Court delays can prolong uncertainty, extending the period of instability before any sentence has been imposed.
The consequences do not end at liberation. People return to the community with fewer protective factors in place than when they entered custody. Housing services, health providers and supervision teams are then required to respond to greater instability than existed at the point of arrest.
These consequences are not only the result of individual decisions. They reflect how and when support is available. Where support is limited, delayed or fragmented, custody is more likely to be used. Where support is visible, coordinated and reliable, courts are better able to make proportionate decisions.
Court decisions are made within compressed and high-pressure environments, where complex personal histories, recent changes in housing, recovery or family circumstances, and formal risk assessments are condensed into short procedural hearings.
In Scotland, criminal cases are still taking longer to progress than before the pandemic. Evidence-led trials can take many months from first appearance to hearing, and serious cases are waiting substantially longer than pre-COVID levels. For many of the people we support, this extends uncertainty well beyond the point of charge.
People supported through Sacro’s services have spoken about feeling “left in limbo” while proceedings continued without resolution. In one case, a woman waited seven years between charge and sentence. During that time, housing arrangements, employment and recovery remained unstable.
Much of the contextual information presented to the court comes through Criminal Justice Social Work Reports, prepared in the days or weeks before the hearing. These reports draw together information from housing, health and other services, often within tight timeframes and under significant caseload pressure. Circumstances can change quickly in the period between report preparation and the hearing itself. Accommodation may be secured or lost. Treatment may begin or lapse. Employment may start or end. Where information is delayed or incomplete, recent progress may not yet be reflected.
Across our services, court is consistently described as a point of acute anxiety.
“I was really anxious before court as I didn’t know if I was going to lose my flat.”
For people with fragile housing, ongoing treatment or caring responsibilities, court is often experienced as a stability risk. Even a short custodial period can interrupt accommodation, employment, recovery or family contact.
The timing, accuracy and completeness of information available at court can therefore determine whether existing stability is maintained or lost.
Across Scotland, access to community alternatives to custody is not consistent.
Community sentences account for a quarter of all sentences imposed. In 2023–24, around 15,100 Community Payback Orders were made by the courts. Bail supervision, diversion, structured deferred sentences and treatment requirements are established parts of the system.
However, national analysis highlights variation in programme availability, workforce capacity and leadership across community justice structures. Justice social work and third sector services are delivering substantial volumes of supervision and support, yet provision is shaped by local infrastructure, staffing levels and commissioning arrangements.
In practice, this affects what is visible and operational at court.
Where supported bail supervision and structured community options are well embedded, courts can rely on them as realistic alternatives. Where availability is limited, eligibility thresholds are narrow or capacity is stretched, options may be technically present but practically constrained.
Judicial confidence develops through consistency. Community disposals need to be credible, timely and capable of being delivered as proposed. Where reliability is uneven, remand is used more frequently as a holding response.
For people appearing in court, geography can shape the range of options genuinely available to them.
Variation in access to community infrastructure has system-level consequences. It influences decision making at the front end and contributes to pressure across the wider prison population.
When community options are consistent, timely and supported, courts are better able to rely on them. When they are not, custody becomes the default response.
The availability of support directly shapes the decisions courts are able to make.
Ask 3 – Reduce Unnecessary Use of Remand and Strengthen Community Alternatives to Custody
Remand has immediate and often irreversible consequences for the people affected and for the wider system.
Accommodation can be lost within days, treatment is interrupted, employment ends and family relationships destabilise. Court delays extend uncertainty, sometimes for years, while decisions are made within compressed hearings that rely on information gathered under significant time pressure. Access to credible community options varies across Scotland, both at the point of remand and at sentencing.
These pressures shape how custody is used.
High reliance on remand and continued use of short custodial sentences reflect the interaction between court timetables, the quality and timeliness of information presented, judicial confidence and the availability of visible, deliverable community infrastructure.
Reducing unnecessary use of remand and limiting custody to cases involving clear and evidenced public safety risk, requires strengthening the full range of community alternatives across the justice journey.
That depends on:
Community-based options that combine supervision with trauma-responsive, practical and emotional support are associated with improved engagement, stronger compliance and lower rates of reoffending than short custodial periods. When these options are reliable and sufficiently resourced, courts are better equipped to use custody proportionately and consistently.
