Grampian drug-related crimes, arrests and convictions: FOI release

Information requested

• Recorded drug-related crimes/arrests/convictions in Grampian from 1980 to 2000, by year.
• Recorded seizures in Grampian per year from 1980 to 2000 – and by drug type
• Recorded drug deaths in Grampian between 1980 and 2000
• Overall recorded crime by year in Grampian from 1980 to 2000.

Response

Some of the information you requested is provided in the attached excel workbook i.e. recorded crime and convictions. Please note that the statistics dealing with recorded crime and court proceedings are not directly comparable. Recorded crime statistics count crimes and offences at the time that they came to the attention of Police Scotland while criminal proceedings statistics report on cases which have concluded in court. This means that a crime may be recorded by the police in one year and court proceedings concluded in a subsequent year. In addition, a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime, or a set of crimes with more than one victim, in a proceeding, but only the main charge is counted in these court proceedings statistics. The ‘main charge’ is typically the one which received the most severe sentence in court.

There is also the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings. 

The number of seizures of controlled drugs for Grampian between 1995-96 and 2000-01 is included in the Drug seizures by Scottish Police Forces, 2004/05 and 2005/06 publication which is available online via the link below. Please note that unlike the table above this information is provided by financial rather than calendar year and also that we are unable to provide a breakdown of the Grampian figures by drug type for the earlier years presented in this bulletin.
https://www2.gov.scot/Publications/2007/02/09094216/27

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are because:
The Scottish Government does not hold data on arrests made by Police Scotland. However, you may wish to contact Police Scotland at foi@scotland.pnn.police.uk who may be able to help you.
In relation to drug related deaths it is National Records of Scotland (NRS) who hold all current information for such statistics in Scotland. The NRS Drug Related Deaths publications are available at this link: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/deaths/drug-related-deaths-in-scotland/archive although they only go as far back as 1997. You may wish to contact Statistics Customer Services at: 
statisticscustomerservices@nrscotland.gov.uk for earlier data.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI-202000023529 Information released

File type

Excel document

File size

11.6 kB