(a) how many and (b) what proportion of people convicted of knife crime possession in each of the last four years have received the maximum…

Section 49 of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 provides for a custodial sentence of up to 5 years for the offence of having an article with a blade or point in a public place. In any given case, sentencing is a matter for the independent court. They take into account all the facts and circumstances of a case before imposing a sentence within the legal framework. It is not possible to disaggregate these figures by the specific type of weapon involved (e.g. knife).Over the last four financial years, for which data is available, there was only one custodial sentence of 5 years or more under this section of the Act, in 2019-20.This sentence exceeds the statutory maximum and may reflect either additional charges being dealt with concurrently or an aggravation, rather than a sentence based solely on the possession offence alone. This represented approximately 0.09% of all (1,141) convictions under this section of the Act in that financial year. Please note that the latest criminal proceedings data is for 2022-23.