Scottish Crime and Justice Survey 2023/24: Main findings

Focus on harassment and discrimination

This section reports on adults’ experiences of harassment and discrimination, by examining whether they had any incidents in which they were insulted, pestered or intimidated in any way (in person or by some other means[1]) by someone outwith their household in the year prior to interview.

These findings are based on questions asked to one-third of the overall sample.[2] As agreed with SCJS users, third-sample results are generally not broken down within the report for population sub-groups. However, some breakdowns are presented here for illustration. All results for demographic and area characteristics are provided in the 2023/24 SCJS online data tables.

Additional information on other experiences of stalking and harassment are captured in the self-completion element of the SCJS with the below summary focusing on key findings on this topic from the main (face-to-face) survey. Due to Covid disruption and contract changes the most recently published findings are for the combined years 2018/19 and 2019/20, presented in the 2019/20 Main Findings Report. Due to updates to the partner abuse questionnaire for the current survey questionnaire, the next set of results will be for the combined 2023/24 and 2024/25 years. Details on these changes were published in Annex D of the 2021/22 Main Findings Report.

How common were experiences of harassment in Scotland in 2023/24?

In 2023/24, 14% of adults said that they had been insulted, pestered or intimidated in the previous year, in line with the proportion of respondents who experienced such incidents in 2008/09 and 2021/22.

Across three of the population sub-groups focused on in this report, sex and SIMD and urban/rural classification, there were no differences in the proportion that said they had been insulted, pestered or intimidated in the previous year. However the proportion was higher amongst those aged between 16 and 24 when compared with those aged 60 and over (20% compared to 7% respectively).

What can the SCJS tell us about the nature of harassment?

Of those who said they had experienced harassment in the year prior to interview the vast majority (96%) were insulted, pestered or intimidated ‘in person’, whilst 12% said this happened ‘in writing via text, email, messenger or posts on social media’. This suggests that ‘offline’ experiences of harassment remain much more common than ‘online’.

Most people who had experienced harassment said it had happened on more than one occasion in the previous year (67%), with 26% reporting only one incident. A further tenth (11%) of people said they experienced harassing behaviour too many times to remember.

Verbal abuse was the most common type of harassment in 2023/24, experienced by 85% of the victims. Other types of harassment, particularly those involving physical contact, were much less commonly experienced, as shown in Figure 13.1. In 2023/24, 4% of people received unwanted sexual images by text, email or online.

More in-depth analysis about the extent and nature of violent incidents in 2023/24 is provided in the ‘Focus on violent crime’ chapter.

Figure 13.1: The majority of victims of harassment experienced verbal abuse with over a third experiencing threats of physical violence.

Proportion of harassment victims experiencing different kinds of behaviour in previous 12 months.

Variable: QHWHAT2.

To explore whether incidents may have been related to discrimination, respondents who experienced harassment in the previous 12 months were asked whether they thought any particular - perceived or actual - characteristic they hold may have motivated the offender in any encounters. A range of possible reasons in relation to the most recent (or only) experience are outlined in Figure 9.6 below.

Around half (52%) did not think any of their characteristics were an influencing factor in their most recent (or only) experience of harassment. Nearly one in five (17%) thought that their sex or gender was a possible motivating factor, while 8% believed their age and 5% believed their ethnic origin or race was a possible influence.

Since the last SCJS in 2021/22, there has been no change across all possible motivating factors.

Figure 13.2: The majority of victims did not think any of their characteristics were an influencing factor in their most recent harassment experience.

What victims thought their most recent (or only) experience of harassment in last year was or may have been motivated by.

Variable: QHDISCRIM1.