scotPHO introduction:
  Community Wellbeing
  Crime
Key points
  Introduction
  Policy context
  Data
  Key data sources
  Key references
  Useful links
  Deprivation
  Education
  Environmental Justice
  Income & Economy
  Physical Environment
  Social Environment
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Crime: key points

Crime overall

The points below are derived from the results of the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey 2004 - Calibration Exercise.

  • Around 930,000 crimes were committed against households and individuals in Scotland between 1 April 2003 and 31 March 2004. Just over 60% of crimes were against property and these mainly involved acts of vandalism against vehicles and other property.
  • Just over one in every five respondents had experienced a crime against themselves or their household. Vandalism was the most common with 15% of households having experienced at least one incident in the previous year. One in every twenty adults reported at least one incident of personal crime in the previous year.
  • Almost one in four crimes involved violence. Petty assault accounts for most of the violent crime and are almost 10 times more prevalent than serious assaults.
  • Crime is perceived by almost 60% of adults as a big problem facing Scotland today. There is greater concern about crime than about standards of health care, housing, education or public transport.
  • The experience of crime is strongly related to the type of area people live in. Households in the areas classified as most deprived using the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation experience more crime and anti-social behaviour than the least deprived areas.

Violence

Violence is increasingly being recognised as a major public health issue in Scotland. The following points are derived from a number of Scottish Executive publications(Recorded Crime in Scotland 2005-06, Domestic Abuse Recorded by the Police in Scotland, 2005 - 06, Homicide in Scotland 2005-06 and Recorded Crimes and Offences Involving Firearms Scotland 2005-06):

  • The number of homicides fell by 32% in the year up to March 2006 
  • There were 93 victims of homicide in 2005/06, 44 fewer than in 2004/05
  • Use of a blade as a method of killing decreased by more than half in 2005/06, with 34 victims last year compared with 72 in 2004/05
  • There were 45,796 incidents of domestic abuse recorded in 2005/06, a 5 per cent increase on the previous year
  • The number of non-sexual crimes of violence recorded by the police decreased by 7 per cent between 2004/05 and 2005/06