Crime and violence: introduction

These pages focus on crime and violence: crime is a social determinant of health and violence has a direct influence on individual health.

The following pages cover:

• An introduction to the nature of crime and violence
• Relevant policy context
• Signposting to key data sources
• Key national trends

Crime, through both its impact on victims and indirect effects on the wider community, has strong links to health and wellbeing at a population level. The nature, frequency and level of different crimes occurring within neighbourhoods will impact on people's concerns about crime and their feelings of safety about living in their neighbourhood.  

Violence is a persistent problem across Scotland and can take many forms, such as youth violence, intimate partner violence, child abuse or sexual violence and has implications far beyond the victim and perpetrator of violence. The physical, psychological, societal and economic impacts of violence not only place a significant burden on healthcare, justice and social care provision but also on individuals, their relationships and surrounding communities.

The WHO’s World Report on Violence and Health (2002) describes violence as a public health problem and calls for a public health response to violence prevention and reduction. In Scotland the Violence Reduction Unit takes a lead in tackling all forms of violence and takes a public health approach, aiming to treat the causes of violence in order to reduce it. 

Violence and its risk factors can be both the consequence of, and the cause of, social inequalities. Violence disproportionately affects the most deprived individuals across society.

There are large and increasing inequalities in mortality due to interpersonal violence, particularly in younger adults, and this is underpinned by socioeconomic disadvantage. The mortality rate from assault in the most deprived communities is nearly four times that of the Scottish average and over 10 times that in the least deprived communities (Equally Well, 2008). Fear of violence can impact on the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities. The risk factors identified for violence are analogous to risk factors identified for poor health and health inequalities, therefore action to prevent violence will help to reduce inequalities in health.

Violence is also linked to gender inequality and men commit the majority of violent incidents across Scotland. Intimate partner violence, and particularly violence against women, is a priority area for Scotland.