Homicide in Scotland 2022-23
Statistical bulletin on crimes of homicide recorded by the police in Scotland in 2022-2023.
This document is part of a collection
Persons accused of homicide
Tables 1 and 6
The number of people accused of homicide has shown an overall downward trend since 2004-05. In 2022-23, there were 73 persons accused of homicide, 10 more than in 2021-22.
The vast majority of persons accused of homicide are male, making up 88% of all accused in 2022-23.
For all of the 52 homicide victims recorded in 2022-23, the associated case was solved.
In 2022-23, the total number of individuals accused of homicide equated to 13 per million population. The rates for those accused of homicide were highest for those aged 35-44 (29 per million population), 16-24 (27 per million population) and 25-34 (24 per million population).
Figure 5 shows the rate for accused by age group and sex for homicides since 2018-19 (i.e. for the past 5 years – representing 366 accused). The rates for males accused of homicide per million population were considerably higher across all age groups than for females.
Figure 5: The highest rates for persons accused of homicide are for men aged 16-44
In 2022-23, the median age of a person accused of homicide was 35 years old, which is the same as 2021-22. Over the past 10 years the median age of a person accused of homicide ranged between 29 and 35 years old. This is generally older than the preceding ten years which ranged between 23 and 30 years old.
The median age of a person accused of homicide has been lower than the median age of victims of homicide in each of the last twenty years.
Over the last twenty years there has been a large reduction in the number of people accused of homicide, with the rate per million population dropping from 31 for the five year period from 2003-04 to 2007-08 to 13 for the five year period from 2018-19 to 2022-23. Figure 6 shows that the biggest drop has been amongst persons aged 16-24, which has fallen from 115 per million population to 29 per million population across the same period.
Figure 6: Over the last 20 years the biggest reduction in those accused of homicide has been amongst persons aged 16-24
Contact
Email: justice_analysts@gov.scot
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