Home secretary Theresa May has made a promise to introduce a statutory time limit to prevent those accused of crimes from spending months or years on bail without being charged by police. At present, bail conditions set by the police can be challenged in a magistrate's court but there is [...]

It is now a criminal offence to force someone into marriage in Scotland. A forced marriage is defined as one where either or both parties do not or cannot consent to the marriage and coercion is involved. The new offence comes in addition to protections previously in place: Scottish courts [...]

Police Scotland has changed its controversial policy on the deployment of armed officers. In future, firearms officers attached to armed response vehicles will only be deployed to incidents involving firearms or where there is a threat to life. The move comes in response to concerns over a "standing authority" which [...]

A new study claims that Scotland's age of criminal responsibility should be raised in line with the rest of Europe. The Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice (CYCJ) also argues that children and young people should have their criminal records wiped sooner. At the moment, the age of criminal responsibility [...]

Police in Glasgow detected almost 25% more drug supply cases between April and June this year after setting a target to find more people dealing in illegal drugs. A quarterly report on the city by Police Scotland Chief Superintendent Andy Bates reveals that 263 drug supply cases were detected between [...]

Non-statutory stop and search activity by Scottish police officers cost taxpayers almost £10 million last year, the Sunday Herald reported this week. The majority of stop and search procedures undertaken in Scotland are non-statutory, which means that they are premised on verbal consent. The controversial searches are aimed at finding [...]

Police officers have raided shops and business premises across Scotland and seized over 3,000 satchets of so-called "legal highs" in Edingburgh, Police Scotland has revealed. Raids also took place in Ayr, Glasgow, Musselburgh, Dundee, Arbroath, Aberdeen and Peterhead, and three men have been charged with culpable and reckless conduct, according [...]

Some communities in Scotland are being unfairly targeted for stop and search, according to a new analysis by equality group CRER, the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights. While there is no evidence of widespread targeting of non-white groups, figures from Police Scotland's Local Policing Management Information reports suggest that [...]

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said this week that he supported the controversial Police Scotland policy on armed officers. After Police Scotland was established last year, Chief Constable Sir Stephen House took the decision to make specialist armed officers available right across the country 24 hours a day, 7 days [...]

Ten Scottish life prisoners have been told that it was a breach of their human rights to deny them the right to vote. Judges at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said that the rights of the prisoners were breached by the UK government but ruled that no compensation [...]