Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2025-26

Antisocial offences

Between 2024-25 and 2025-26, the number of Antisocial offences recorded by the police in Scotland increased by 7% from 47,942 to 51,531. In the last 10 years, the number of Antisocial offences has decreased by 35% from 79,178 in 2016-17 to 51,531 in 2025-26.

The national rate of recorded Antisocial offences was 93 offences per 10,000 population in 2025-26. This has increased from 86 per 10,000 population in 2024-25, but decreased from 147 per 10,000 population in 2016-17.

In 2025-26, of all Antisocial offences:

• Threatening and abusive behaviour accounted for the majority (89%)
• Drunkenness and other disorderly conduct accounted for 6%
• Hate aggravated conduct accounted for 3%
• Urinating, etc. accounted for 2%

Figure 22 below presents the offence categories within Antisocial offences over the latest 10 years and gives an indication of the trend and scale of each category.

Figure 22. Threatening and abusive behaviour and Drunkenness and other disorderly conduct have decreased since 2016-17, driving the overall decrease in total Antisocial offences.

Antisocial offences recorded by the police (000s), by category, Scotland, 2016-17 to 2025-26.

Threatening and abusive behaviour

Between 2024-25 and 2025-26, recorded offences of Threatening and abusive behaviour increased by 6% from 43,161 to 45,693 offences. There was a 20% decrease over the 10 year period between 2016-17 and 2025-26, from 56,863 to 45,693 offences.

The Threatening and abusive behaviour category includes offences of Threatening or abusive behaviour (which account for the vast majority of the category, at 86%), Threatening and abusive behaviour of a retail worker (8%) and Breach of the peace offences (5%).

Threatening and abusive behaviour of a retail worker is a subset of the Threatening and abusive behaviour category, which came into effect on the 24 August 2021. This was introduced by the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021. There were 3,836 such offences recorded in 2025-26. More information on this legislation is provided in Annex 1.

The offence of Abortion Services (Safe access zone) came in to effect following  implementation of the Abortion Services (Safe access zone) (Scotland) Act 2024 in September 2024. One offence was recorded in 2025-26. More information on this new legislation is provided in Annex 1.

Hate aggravated conduct

Between 2024-25 and 2025-26, recorded offences of Hate aggravated conduct decreased by 9% from 1,929 to 1,753 offences. There was a 12% decrease over the 10 year period between 2016-17 and 2025-26, from 1,997 to 1,753 offences.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 came into force on 1 April 2024. This led to a new associated crime code of Stirring up Hatred: Other Group, along with Stirring up Hatred: Racial (which records offences that prior to April 2024 would have been included within the Race Relations Act crime code). Both these new crime codes are included in the Hate aggravated conduct category.

In 2025-26, the police recorded 31 offences of Stirring up Hatred: Racial and 5 offences of Stirring up Hatred: Other Group. This is considerably lower than the 75 Racial and 64 Other Group offences reported in the 2024-25 recorded crime bulletin. However following publication of those figures in June 2025, statisticians and Police Scotland carried out an additional quality assurance review to determine if the most appropriate crime classification code had been used for these incidents. This formed part of a wider project to produce the separate and first Hate crimes recorded by the police in Scotland bulletin, which should be considered the main source of data on hate crime. This report, produced under Section 15 of the aforementioned Act, was published in February 2026. It includes detailed information on the number and type of hate crimes recorded by police in 2024-25, as well as victim and perpetrator characteristics and prejudice shown.

The quality assurance review determined that several cases originally classified as Stirring up should have been recorded as a different type of crime (for example threatening or abusive behaviour). As such, the figures of 50 Racial and 17 Other Group offences in 2024-25, as published in the Hate Crime bulletin, provide the more accurate position to compare with the 31 Racial and 5 Other Group offences recorded in 2025-26. Going forward it is advised that users interested in Hate Crime statistics primarily use the standalone Hate Crime report, with updates on progress towards publishing the 2025-26 version available through the Scotstat network.

More detail on these offences is provided in Table A10 in the 'Supporting documents' Excel workbook and in the User Guide.