Criminal justice statistics user guide
This document provides detailed information on the Criminal Proceedings and Reconviction Rates in Scotland statistical bulletins. It is designed as a reference guide with explanatory notes regarding issues and classifications which are crucial to the production and presentation of criminal justice statistics in Scotland.
5. Classification of crimes and offences
5.1 Crime and Offence groupings
Violations of criminal law are divided, for statistical purposes only, into crimes and offences. There are around 8,500 active charge codes, which are the operational codes used within the Justice System to identify crimes and offences. These charge codes are mapped to around 600 crime codes, which in turn are (as of the 2021 to 2022 Criminal Proceedings in Scotland publication onwards) grouped into 50 broader categories, and further into eight crime and offence groups. Coronavirus restrictions crimes are recorded under a separate unnumbered group. This classification enables consistent and comparable reporting between criminal justice organisations. Detailed information on the classification of crimes and offences is presented in the Scottish Government’s User Guide to Recorded Crime Statistics in Scotland.
There are some minor differences between the classification used in Recorded crime statistics and these publications. More details on this are provided in section 6 below.
5.2 Domestic Abuse
Crime of domestic abuse are defined in a number of ways in our statistics:
- crimes marked with the statutory domestic abuse aggravation
- crimes marked with the non-statutory domestic abuse identifier
- crimes as defined by the Domestic Abuse Scotland Act (2018)
The statutory domestic abuse aggravation was created by the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 and came into effect on the 24th April 2017 for crimes that took place on or after this date. The statutory domestic abuse aggravation is libelled on individual charges and, if proven in court, will be taken into account during sentencing. The statutory aggravation is always applied in conjunction with the identifier (below).
The non-statutory domestic abuse identifier is applied to any crime where there is some association with domestic abuse. IT is for administrative purposes only, does not have to be proven in court and does not affect sentencing outcomes. Although the identifier is always applied to cases where the statutory aggravator is applied, the reverse is not true and the identifier can be applied to cases without the statutory aggravator. The domestic abuse identifier is used for operational, rather than statutory purposes. Therefore, it is less clear how the data should be interpreted as the use of the identifier is less defined, and the quality of the data may vary.
The Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 introduced a crime relating to a person engaging in a course of behaviour relating to domestic abuse. There is also a provision for a new statutory aggravation relating to children, which is aggravated if the offence directs behaviour at a child, or uses a child to direct behaviour at the partner/ex-partner. It came into force on 1 April 2019.
The Criminal Proceedings in Scotland bulletin includes data on the number of people who have been prosecuted and convicted under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 and also those who were convicted with the statutory domestic abuse aggravation.
The Reconviction Rates in Scotland bulletin currently includes data on the number of people who had reconvictions following an index conviction with the statutory domestic abuse aggravation and also those with the non-statutory domestic abuse identifier. Currently we do not separate out reconvictions following a conviction under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018. There will however be some of these reconvictions included in the ‘non-sexual crimes of violence’.