The Scottish Government

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CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH ON LIFE SENTENCE PRISONERS

Research in England and Wales

A number of studies have been carried out in the past which examine the characteristics of murder and homicide cases. Gibson (1975) analysed homicide cases which arose in England and Wales between 1967 and 1971 and found that the majority of those convicted of murder were young males, almost two thirds of whom (64%) had previous convictions. One third of the murderers had previous convictions for property offences only, while slightly fewer than one third (30.5%) had previous convictions for offences involving personal violence.

Gibson also found that the victims of murder and manslaughter were evenly divided between men and women but while more than half of the male victims were killed by acquaintances, the female victims were more likely (34.5%) to have been killed by their husband. Child victims were predominantly the sons or daughters of suspects.

Morris and Blom-Cooper (1979) analysed the characteristics of people indicted for murder in England and Wales between 1957 and 1977 and found that two fifths of all defendants were aged between 15 and 24 while two thirds were aged between 15 and 34. They also found that while the proportion of cases in which women were indicted for murder was small, the incidence appeared to be rising - between 1957 and 1970 the proportion of cases in which women were indicted rose from 6% to 16%.

One fifth of murder victims in Morris and Blom-Cooper's study were aged between 15 and 24 and a further 15% were aged between 25 and 34. The authors concluded, however, that amongst those most at risk were children under the age of 4 who accounted for 15% of all victims.

Mitchell (1989) analysed 250 cases of people convicted of murder in England and Wales between 1978 and 1982. He found that 67% of defendants had faced a single charge of murder at trial while a further 30% had faced a charge of murder together with other charges. The remaining 9 defendants (3%) had faced multiple murder charges. More than three quarters of the cases had involved pleas of not guilty despite there being 'clear evidence' in 48% of cases of prior preparedness to kill. Minimum recommendations, ranging from 10 to 30 years, were made by the judge in 11% of cases.

Focus of the present study

The focus of the present study was somewhat narrower than the focus of the studies mentioned above. The research explored the characteristics of offenders who had served (or were still serving at the time of data collection) sentences of life imprisonment in Scotland and focused primarily on life sentence prisoners' parole 'careers' in terms of consideration of cases by the Parole Board, release on licence and recall, and on the extent and nature of their previous and subsequent convictions.

The study explored the characteristics of:

• 41 discretionary life sentence prisoners sentenced between 22 January 1963 and 31 December 1996; and,
• 1016 mandatory life sentence prisoners - including those sentenced to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure or Without Limit of Time - sentenced between 1 January 1965 (the year in which the death penalty was abolished) and 31 December 1996.

One of the main objectives of the study was to record the length of time life sentence prisoners spend in custody under Scottish criminal justice arrangements. For this reason, life sentence prisoners were included in the study only if the final decision to release them was made within the Scottish criminal justice system. The study included:

• offenders convicted of murder;
• offenders convicted of offences other than murder which were sufficiently serious to merit a discretionary life sentence; and,
• offenders sentenced to life imprisonment outwith Scotland but transferred to a prison in Scotland to serve all or the remainder of their sentence.

The study excluded:

• offenders convicted of culpable homicide unless they received a discretionary life sentence;
• offenders indicted for murder but found to be insane and unfit to plead or acquitted on the grounds of insanity and ordered to be detained in hospital;
• offenders who were sentenced to life imprisonment in Scotland but transferred to serve all or the remainder of their sentence in another jurisdiction; and,
• life sentence prisoners who had been transferred from prison to a psychiatric institution at the time of data collection.

Data sources

A number of data sources were utilised for the study. The primary source was case records held by the Parole and Miscarriages Review Division of The Scottish Office Home Department on offenders sentenced to life imprisonment up to 31 December 1996. It was from these records that the total of 41 discretionary life sentence prisoners and 1016 mandatory life sentence prisoners was identified. It is known (see page 9) that at least 2 other people received discretionary life sentences in Scotland prior to 1963 but their records were no longer available. It is possible that there might have been others. Cross-referencing with other data sources (see, for example, page 10) suggests that the sample of mandatory life sentence prisoners is largely complete. Information on the date of sentence, minimum recommendations, appearances before the Parole Board and release and recall was collected from case records and the minutes of Preliminary Review Committee and Parole Board meetings.

The second data source used was individual offenders' criminal records obtained from Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO). Records were obtained for all 41 of the discretionary life sentence prisoners and for a total of 921 (91%) of the mandatory life sentence prisoners. The remaining 95 records were not available for a number of reasons: in 62 cases the records had been destroyed because the life sentence prisoners were deceased; in 33 cases the record could not be traced which may have been due to discrepancies in the name and/or date of birth or because the offender had been transferred from another jurisdiction and had no convictions in Scotland.

The final data source utilised was the Homicide Index maintained by The Scottish Office Civil and Criminal Justice Statistics Unit. The Index was established in 1978 and, as such, contained information on only a proportion (58%) of the mandatory life sentence prisoners included in the study. Information on the circumstances of the offence and the characteristics of the victim was extracted from the Homicide Index. Because the number of discretionary life sentence prisoners was small, similar factual information was collected, where it existed, from their Parole records. It was not feasible to undertake the same exercise for mandatory life sentence prisoners convicted prior to the creation of the Index in 1978 for two reasons: firstly, the number of cases involved (n=428) was too great; and secondly, much of the information, for example that relating to the motive for killing, the location of the incident and the relationship between the victim and the offender, is open to individual interpretation and it was not possible to ensure that researchers collecting information from Parole files would interpret the data in the same way as police personnel who provide the information contained in the Homicide Index.

In summary, the use of 3 separate data sources for the study, 2 of which did not produce information on 100% of the cases, means that the analyses contained in this report were based on the following:

• all discretionary life sentence prisoners of whom a record existed in Parole and Miscarriages Review Division (N=41);
• all mandatory life sentence prisoners sentenced between 1 January 1965 and 31 December 1996 of whom a record existed in Parole and Miscarriages Review Division (N=1016).
• Information on age, sex and date of sentence was available for all of these prisoners and information on Parole decisions, release dates and recall was available for all except one discretionary life sentence prisoner.
• SCRO records containing information on previous and subsequent convictions for 100% (N=41) of the discretionary life sentence prisoners;
• SCRO records containing information on previous and subsequent convictions for 91% (N=921) of the mandatory life sentence prisoners;
• information on the circumstances of the offence and the characteristics of the victim contained in the Homicide Index for 58% (N=588) of the mandatory life sentence prisoners;
• information on the circumstances of the offence and the characteristics of the victim collected from Parole records for 36 of the discretionary life sentence prisoners.

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