Source: http://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2016-17/pages/4/
Timestamp: 2020-08-12 11:59:20
Document Index: 7656205

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 1', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'art 4', 'art 3', 'art 3', 'art 4', 'art 5']

Recorded crime is at its lowest level since 1974. The total number of crimes recorded by the police in Scotland in 2016-17 was 238,651. This is 3% lower than the level recorded in 2015-16 ( Chart 1 and Table 6). Crime has been on a downward trend in Scotland since 2006-07, having decreased by 43%. This continues a generally decreasing trend in recorded crime in Scotland, from a peak in 1991 when crime reached a record high of 572,921.
Chart 1: Total crimes recorded by the police, 1971 to 1994 then 1995-96 to 2016-17 ( Table 10)
Chart 2 shows the number of recorded crimes in each of the five crime groups since 1971 and gives an indication of the scale of each crime group. At 47%, Crimes of dishonesty account for almost half of all recorded crime in 2016-17. This was followed by Other crimes (23%), Fire-raising, vandalism etc. (22%), Sexual crimes (5%) and Non-sexual crimes of violence (3%). These individual groups will be discussed in more detail in the sections which follow.
Chart 2: Crimes recorded by the police by crime group, 1971 to 1994 then 1995-96 to 2016-17 ( Table 10)
The overall decrease in recorded crime between 2015-16 and 2016-17 was reflected in 20 of the 32 local authorities, with 11 experiencing an increase and one with very little change from the previous year. Year on year figures can vary across local authorities, however the long term trend is broadly the same across Scotland. Chart 4 shows that since 2007-08, all local authorities show a decrease in recorded crime, varying from 13% in Midlothian to 61% in Na h-Eileanan Siar.
The largest fall in recorded crime between 2015-16 and 2016-17 was in the Shetland Islands (34%) where more than half (52%) of the decrease was accounted for by falls in the Other crimes group. This is in contrast to the previous year when the Shetland Islands had the largest increase in recorded crime.
The largest numerical decrease was in the City of Edinburgh, falling by over 2,300 crimes from 31,880 in 2015-16 to 29,558 in 2016-17. The largest number of crimes recorded were in Glasgow City, which includes 11% of Scotland's population [1] , but accounted for 18% (43,903 crimes) of all recorded crime in Scotland. It should however be noted that Glasgow's daily population will be higher than its resident population as people travel into the city from surrounding local authority areas for work, leisure and other purposes. Crimes are recorded in terms of where they occur and not the home residency of the victim (where the two places are different locations). The comparison described above for overall crime levels should be viewed in this context – which will also likely apply to Scotland's other city based local authorities.
The largest rise in recorded crime between 2015-16 and 2016-17 was in Midlothian (12%) where 78% of the increase was accounted for by a rise in Crimes of dishonesty and Other crimes.
One local authority, Fife, saw very little change in recorded crime between 2015-16 and 2016-17 ( Chart 3).
Chart 3: Change in total recorded crime between 2015-16 and 2016-17, by local authority area
Chart 4: Change in total recorded crime between 2007-08 and 2016-17, by local authority area
There were 442 recorded crimes per 10,000 population in 2016-17, with urban areas recording the highest rates; Glasgow City (714 per 10,000 population), Aberdeen City (606 per 10,000 population), Dundee City (600 per 10,000 population) and the City of Edinburgh (583 per 10,000 population) ( Table 13).
Chart 5: Total number of recorded crimes per 10,000 population 1, 2016-17
1. Population estimates are as at mid-year 2016 from the National Records of Scotland ( http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/population/population-estimates/mid-year-population-estimates)
HMICS audited 6,273 incidents reported to Police Scotland between the 1st January and 31st March 2016. HMICS took several factors into account when deciding what to audit – including areas identified as weak in previous audits, areas of high risk or emerging concern, national and local policing priorities, and areas which have not previously been subject to independent audit. Five categories were included, three of which related to specific crime types: