Emergency Early Release

The Scottish prison population has risen rapidly in recent months.

In response to this, the Scottish Government is now considering a range of measures that are designed to safeguard the community, those in our care and SPS staff.

MSPs at the Scottish Parliament have now voted in support of one of those - Emergency Early Release of those on short-term sentences, who are already due for release in the coming weeks.

If you are a victim and want to find out the release date for an offender please see the document below which sets out how you do this. 

There are three ways in which victims can find out when an offender will now be released under Emergency Early Release:

• If you are registered with the Victim Notification Scheme (VNS), you do not have to do anything. The VNS team will call or write to let you know if the release date has changed before the offender is released.
• You can contact one of the following Victim Support Organisations (Victim Support Scotland, Children 1st, Rape Crisis Scotland, or Assist) to request this information from SPS on your behalf.
• Even if you are not registered with the VNS, you can call the team on 0131 330 3664 to ask for the offender's release date, but SPS will need to confirm with SCTS or COPFS that we can provide this information to you.

We recognise that receiving news of a change to an offender's release date may be upsetting. There are organisations in Scotland that can offer help and support, and contact details for many of these can be found on our website, here.