ABSTRACT
This chapter utilizes results from the research to consider recorded offending while on bail. Following a description of how bail is operated in Scotland, it provides an examination of the level of bail abuse identified in the study and its significance in relation to criminal justice decision making in the study areas. Particular decisions to release or detain accused not only have an immediate effect on the accused, they also impact on the later action of other criminal justice agencies in relation to that accused. When police, prosecutors and courts make decisions about how to respond to people accused of crime but not yet convicted or sentenced, they must strike a delicate balance between fairness to the accused, whose cases are still being considered within the due process of law, and their duty to act in the public interest by not placing the public at undue risk from criminal activity.
