Domestic abuse: statistics recorded by the police in Scotland, 2024-25
Characteristics of victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse incidents recorded by the police in Scotland from 2024 to 2025.
Part of
Introduction
This statistical bulletin provides information on domestic abuse incidents and domestic abuse aggravated crimes and offences recorded by the police in 2024-25 (from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025).
Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) have a shared definition of domestic abuse available on the Police Scotland website. This definition is:
‘Any form of physical, verbal, sexual, psychological or financial abuse which might amount to criminal conduct and which takes place within the context of a relationship. The relationship will be between partners (married, cohabiting, civil partnership or otherwise) or ex-partners. The abuse can be committed in the home or elsewhere including online’.
From 2014-15 to 2023-24, all domestic abuse data was collected through the interim Vulnerable Persons Database (iVPD).
From 2024-25, domestic abuse aggravated crimes and offences are now recorded on Police Scotland’s new crime management system (UNIFI), instead of the iVPD. Given this, it is no longer possible to report on the proportion of domestic abuse incidents that involved a crime or offence. Furthermore, it is not possible to provide a like-for-like comparison with previous years. There has been no change to the way information on incidents of domestic abuse are recorded, so these statistics remain comparable with earlier years.
Information on domestic abuse aggravated crimes and offences recorded by the police have been split into the eight crime and offence groupings as used by the Recorded Crime Accredited Official Statistics. Further breakdowns of crime and offence groupings are also shown where relevant. Annex 1 provides definitions of ‘crime’ and ‘offence’.
This annual ‘Domestic abuse recorded by the police in Scotland’ Official Statistics bulletin forms part of a series of bulletins on the criminal justice system, which can be found on the Scottish Government website.
All tables referred to below are available in the 'Supporting Documents' Excel workbook for this bulletin. The workbook includes an ‘Introduction’ sheet, with information on how to navigate the tables, alongside a ‘Notes’ sheet, with relevant details to assist users when reading and interpreting results.
What are these statistics used for?
These statistics inform the Scottish Government’s Vision for Justice in Scotland. This was published in February 2022 and sets out a transformative vision for the whole justice system in Scotland. They are also used by a range of stakeholders to monitor trends, for policy research and development, and for social research purposes.
Further information on users and uses of the statistics is available in the Future Developments section of this bulletin.
How does the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 impact these statistics?
The Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 came into force on 1 April 2019. It created a new offence for circumstances where a person engages in a course of behaviour which is abusive towards their partner or ex-partner. A course of behaviour involves behaviour on at least two occasions.
The Act did not alter the way in which statistics on the volume of domestic abuse incidents reported to the police are collected and produced. As such its impact on this data is likely to be limited, albeit the associated awareness campaign to raise public understanding of domestic abuse, and to encourage victims to seek support may have had a role in the increased number of incidents seen during the years following the introduction of the Act. Police Recorded Crime Accredited Official Statistics remain the primary source for users interested in the number of crimes recorded under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018.
An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland
These statistics are official statistics. Official statistics are statistics that are produced by crown bodies, those acting on behalf of crown bodies, or those specified in statutory orders, as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
Scottish Government statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.