Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2025-26

Total Recorded Offences

Between 2024-25 and 2025-26, the number of offences recorded by the police in Scotland increased by 9% from 175,979 to 192,276. In the last 10 years, the number of offences recorded by the police in Scotland has decreased by 16% from 229,458 in 2016-17 to 192,276 in 2025-26.

The national rate of total recorded offences was 347 offences per 10,000 population in 2025-26. This has increased from 317 in 2024-25, but decreased from 427 in 2016-17.

In 2025-26, of all recorded offences:

• Road traffic offences accounted for approximately two thirds (66%)
• Antisocial offences accounted for over a quarter (27%)
• Miscellaneous offences accounted for 7%

It should be noted that the number of offences recorded by the police generally tends to be affected to a greater extent by police activity and operational decisions than the number of crimes.

Figure 21 below presents the offence groups within total recorded offences over the latest 10 years and gives an indication of the trend and scale of each group.

Figure 21. The decrease in Antisocial offences since 2016-17 has driven the decrease in total offences over the last 10 years, however the increase in Road traffic offences in the latest year has driven an increase in total offences between 2024-25 and 2025-26.

Offences recorded by the police by offence group (000s), Scotland, 2016-17 to 2025-26.

Further information is available from the 'Supporting documents' Excel workbook for this bulletin.  This includes data on the number of offences recorded in each category (Table 2) and rates per 10,000 population (Table 4).