Scottish Crime and Justice Survey 2019/20: main findings

Annex B: Overview of police recorded crime and the SCJS

Where do the data come from?

Recorded Crime

Administrative police records

Scottish Crime and Justice Survey

Face-to-face interviews with residents from a nationally representative sample of the household population

Basis for inclusion

Recorded Crime

Crimes recorded to the police in Scotland, governed by the Scottish Crime Recording Standard

Scottish Crime and Justice Survey

Trained coders determine whether experiences of victimisation in the last 12 months constitute a crime and assign an offence code

Frequency

Recorded Crime

Collected by financial year. Statistics released in an annual publication

Scottish Crime and Justice Survey

Survey conducted annually for each financial year with reference period extending around 25 months. Results previously published biennially, now annually

Strengths

Recorded Crime

• Covers the full range of crimes and offences
• Provides data at a local level
• A good measure of rarer, more serious crimes that are well reported
• Measure of long-term trends
• Good measure of crime that the police are faced with

Scottish Crime and Justice Survey

• Good measure of trends since 2008/09
• Captures further information about crimes that are and are not reported to the police (including sensitive issues such as domestic abuse or drug abuse)
• Analyses crime for different demographic groups and victim-offender relationships
• Provides information on multiple and repeat victimisation (up to 5 incidents in a series)
• Provides attitudinal data (e.g. fear of crime or attitudes towards the criminal justice system)

Limitations

Recorded Crime

• Partially reliant on the public reporting crime
• Reporting rates may vary by the type of crime (e.g. serious crime is more likely to be reported or housebreaking if a crime number is required for insurance purposes)
• Trends can be affected by legislation; public reporting practices; police recording practices

Scottish Crime and Justice Survey

• Does not cover all crimes (e.g. homicide or crimes without specific victims, such as speeding)
• Does not cover the entire population (e.g. children, homeless people or people living in communal accommodation)
• Less able to produce robust data at lower level geographies
• Difficult to measure trends between survey years, especially in rarer forms of crime (such as more serious offences)
• Estimates are subject to a degree of error (confidence intervals)

What other data are collected?

Recorded Crime

• Additional statistical bulletins published, including on homicides, firearm offences and domestic abuse incidents

Scottish Crime and Justice Survey

• Public perceptions about crime
• Worry about crime and the perceived likelihood of being a victim
• Confidence in the police and the criminal justice system
• Prevalence estimates on 'sensitive' topics (partner abuse, sexual victimisation, stalking and drug use). Reported on biennially