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Publication - Statistics

Safer Communities and Justice Statistics Monthly Data Report: August 2025

Published
28 August 2025
From
Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, +4 more … Minister for Victims and Community Safety, Lord Advocate, Chief Statistician, Director-General Education and Justice
Directorate
Safer Communities Directorate, +2 more … Justice Directorate, Children and Families Directorate
Topic
Communities and third sector, Law and order, Public safety and emergencies

This report contains summary statistics covering a number of important justice and safer communities areas. It is updated with the most recently published statistics.

Part of

Supporting documents

Police recorded crime changed little between 2023-24 and 2024-25, decreasing by less than 1%. The recording of crime remains below the position immediately prior to the pandemic (2019-20) and is down 51% from its peak in 1991. The total number of crimes recorded by the police in Scotland in 2024-25 was 299,111. This was 679 crimes (or less than 1%) lower than the level recorded in 2023-24.

Chart 1 : Number of crimes recorded by the police (in thousands) – 2015-16 to 2024-25

Chart 1 – Annual number of crimes recorded by the police in the years 2015-16 to 2024-25. This has been stable for the last ten years, at around 300,000.

Property and violent crime has fallen by 37% since 2008-09. Results from the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) show that one-in-five (19.9%) adults were estimated to have experienced at least one crime in 2023-24. This included property crime (10.3% of adults), violent crime (2.9%) and for the first time fraud and computer misuse (9.5%). The latest findings show that the overall level of property and violent crime combined and the likelihood of being a victim of these crimes has increased since 2021-22. However, no change is detected with the pre-pandemic year of 2019-20, and both measures are down since 2008-09.

Chart 2: Estimated total crimes (in thousands) – by survey year

Chart 2 - Overall crimes, 2008-09 to 2023-24. Overall crime picture from the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, 2008-09 to 2023-24. This illustrates one series showing that property and violent crime is down over the long term, but increased between 2021-22 and 2023-24. The other series illustrates all crime, including fraud and computer misuse, which was introduced in 2023-24 and does not therefore yet show any trend.

Recorded violent crime changed little in the most recent year. Non-sexual crimes of violence recorded by the police decreased by less than 1%, from 71,473 in 2023-24 to 71,170 in 2024-25. Common assault (down less than 1%) made up the clear majority (83%) of all non-sexual crimes of violence recorded in 2024-25. The SCJS showed that in 2023-24 the volume of violent crime increased by 73% since 2021-22. However, this is still 27% lower than 2008-09 and does not show a statistically significant change from 2019-20. It also showed that an estimated 44% of violent crime in 2023-24 was reported to the police.

Recorded sexual crimes increased in the most recent year. Sexual crimes increased by 3%, from 14,484 in 2023-24 to 14,892 in 2024-25. Sexual crimes have been increasing in the long term. Multiple factors lie behind the long term increase in recorded sexual crime including for example - historical reporting, more online offending and the impact of new legislation. The latest available data from the SCJS, for 2018-20 (2018-19 & 2019-20 combined) estimated that 3.6% of adults experienced at least one serious sexual assault since the age of 16, unchanged from 2008-09.

Women more likely to experience partner abuse. The SCJS, for 2018-20, estimated that 3.2% of respondents had experienced partner abuse in the year prior to interview. A higher proportion of women than men experienced this, at 3.7% and 2.6% respectively.

Increase in crime clear up rate. The clear up rate for all recorded crimes was 56.0% in 2024-25, up from 54.1% in 2023-24. Crimes against society (93.8%), non-sexual crimes of violence (68.4%) and sexual crimes (56.9%) continued to have higher clear up rates in 2024-25 than crimes of dishonesty (35.1%) and damage and reckless behaviour (31.0%).

Number of victims of homicide at third lowest since 1976. There were 57 homicide victims recorded by the police in Scotland in 2023-24, a 10% increase from 2022-23 but a 10% decrease from 2014-15.

Chart 3: Number of victims of homicide, 2014-15 to 2023-24

Chart 3 - Victims of homicide, 2014-15 to 2023-24 Annual number of victims of homicide recorded by the police, 2014-15 to 2023-24. Has ranged between 52 and 67 over the last decade.

Increase in recorded domestic abuse incidents. There were 63,867 incidents of domestic abuse recorded by the police in 2023-24, an increase of 3% on 2022-23. In 2023-24, 38% of all incidents recorded by the police included the recording of at least one crime or offence.

Chart 4: Number of domestic abuse incidents, 2016-17 to 2023-24

Chart 4 - Domestic abuse incidents, 2016-17 to 2023-24 Annual number of incidents of domestic abuse recorded by the police, broken down by whether crime/offence involved, 2016-17 to 2023-24.

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