In 2024/25 the crime rate in Scotland was *** crimes per 10,000 people, one of the lowest crime rates recorded in this time period. After peaking at ***** in 2004/05, the crime rate in Scotland has fallen significantly, reaching a low in the 2021/22 reporting year.

Glasgow City's crime rate of *** crimes per 10,000 people was the highest of any region of Scotland in 2024/25. The rate for the whole of Scotland was *** per 10,000 people, which appears to be driven by low crime in places such as the Shetland Islands, with almost all Scottish cities reporting higher than average crime rates. In Dundee, the crime rate was *** crimes per 10,000 people, while in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, the crime rate was *** per 10,000 population. Comparisons with the rest of the UK When compared with the rest of the United Kingdom, Scotland has experienced a noticeable decline in its overall crime rate. In 2008/09 for example, Scotland's crime rate was higher than that of England and Wales, as well as Northern Ireland, the other two jurisdictions in the UK. In 2022/23, however, Scotland's crime rate was the lowest in the UK, with the crime rate in England and Wales rising noticeably during the same period. Scotland's homicide rate has also fallen, from being the highest in the UK in 2002/03, to the lowest in 2022/23. What types of crime increased in recent years? The overall number of crimes recorded by the Scottish police since the mid 2010s has remained broadly stable, with ******* offences reported in 2024/25. Specific types of crime have, however, increased in recent times. In 2024/25, for example, there were ****** sexual crimes reported by the police, compared with ***** ten years earlier. As in the rest of the UK, shoplifting has increased rapidly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching a peak of ****** offences in the 2024/25 reporting year.

In the 2024/25 reporting year, there were 52,406 crimes recorded in Glasgow City, the most of any local authority in Scotland. The Shetland Islands, by comparison, had just 414 crimes recorded in the same period.

There were 299,111 crimes recorded by the police in Scotland in 2024/25, a similar figure to the previous year, when there were 299,790 crimes reported. During this time period, there is a clear trend of falling crime, with 2004/05 having the highest number of crimes and 2021/22 the fewest.

In 2024/25, there were 71,170 non-sexual violent crimes recorded by the police in Scotland. The number of violent crimes in Scotland has generally fallen throughout this period, from a peak of 92,266 in 2002/03 to a low of 61,913 in 2020/21.

Scotland's Health, Housing and Crime Statistics

Exploring Multifaceted Issues with Machine Learning

By [source]

About this dataset

This dataset of 60 Scottish statistical indicators offers the opportunity to explore open government data with machine learning, covering 7 categories – health, social care, housing and crime and justice. Drawn from a total of 6,976 “2011 data zones” in Scotland that provide a variety of information from 2015, it delves into the intricate details of local populations to reveal potential insights. With features on crucial measures such as travel times by car and public transport, chimney fires ratio and educational attainment scores - this dataset provides a rich source of reliable statistics for use in business analysis or policy making. Uncover trends through the exploration of Scottish socio-economic conditions at both an individual and communal scale!

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How to use the dataset

This dataset, entitled Scotland’s Health, Housing and Crime Statistics provides an integrated set of 60 Scottish statistical indicators from seven categories - health, social care, housing, and crime and justice - derived from a total of 6,976 “2011 data zones” in Scotland.

To assist you in exploring these data points we have provided a guide on how to approach and make effective use of the information available.

1. Read through the descriptions of each indicator carefully to understand what each measure is assessing. This will help you determine which indicators may be more relevant to your research topic or project objectives.

2. Consider the time period covered by the dataset – this gives you an indication as to how up-to-date or recent these measures are likely to be; it also provides context for interpreting their accuracy within a given frame of reference e.g., if the measures are captured across five years then they represent changes over time rather than snapshots in one particular year only).

3. Compare different indicators – look for correlations between variables that suggest either higher incidents or risk factors being related in some way or other; likewise bear any traditional assumptions associated with certain topics at bay as there may possibly exist divergent patterns in this analysis that challenge existing ideas about certain subject matter areas (this could offer significant insight into new insights for further research investigations).

4. Use visualisations when exploring your data points; graphical representations can often demonstrate patterns intuitively which helps paint a broader picture around key themes within your research question(s) that might explain causation issues such as root causes etc.. .

5. Explore regional differences too – breaking down aggregate measures into subcomponents like geography (e..g province/region/state level), gender etc., can provide potential areas where localised interventions can be implemented with greater focus moving forward according to differing needs arising across different places/groups with different characteristics associated on them (eag population health disparities exist). Furthermore when exploring regional differences you should also take temporal aspects into consideration e..g whether levels measured today vary significantly from comparable numbers observed during previous periods or vice versa)

Research Ideas

• Identifying correlations between different statistical indicators to develop an overall health report for each data zone in Scotland. By analyzing both health and housing indicators, a comprehensive view of the living conditions in each area can be obtained, providing the government with insights for appropriate policy interventions.
• Predictive modeling to analyze future crime trends based on existing crime data from various locations across Scotland. This could help governments plan better security measures and allocate resources more effectively in order to protect their population more efficiently.
• Extensive use of machine learning algorithms such as clustering and classification on this dataset could give insight into whether certain indicator values are predictors of other values or not, which could then be used directly by governments when making economic policies associated with these values (e.g., housing prices). Furthermore, a comparison between actual outcomes with those predicted by models based on the dataset could be done easily to adjust policies appropriately according to real-time findings if needed

Acknowledgements

If you use this data...

Scotland Crime - Civil Law Statistics

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) is a social survey which asks people about their experiences and perceptions of crime in Scotland. The survey is an important resource for both the government and public of Scotland. Respondents are selected at random from the Postal Address File and participation in the survey is entirely voluntary. The main aims of the SCJS are to:

• provide reliable statistics on people's experience of crime in Scotland, including services provided to victims of crime
• assess the varying risk of crime for different groups of people in the population
• examine trends in the level and nature of crime in Scotland over time
• collect information about people's experiences of, and attitudes on a range of crime and justice related issues

An important role of the SCJS is to provide an alternative and complementary measure of crime to police recorded crime statistics. For further details of the scope and methodology of the SCJS, please see documentation. Information about the survey and links to publications may be found on the Scottish Government's Scottish Crime and Justice Survey webpages.

Background and history of the SCJS
Previous surveys of victimisation in Scotland began with the Scottish components of the 1982 and 1988 sweeps of the British Crime Survey (BCS) (held at the Archive under SNs 4368 and 4599) The Scottish element of the 1988 BCS was also known as the Scottish Areas Crime Survey and coverage was limited in those early surveys to the areas south of the Caledonian Canal. From 2012, the BCS has been renamed the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) (held under GN 33174).

The first independent Scotland-only crime survey was commissioned by the Scottish Office in 1993 under the title of the Scottish Crime Survey (SCS) and was followed by repeated sweeps in 1996 (both years held together under SN 3813), and again in 2000 (SN 4542) and 2003 (SN 5756). In 2004 the survey underwent both a name change, to the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (SCVS) (SN 5757), and a major methodological change, with a move away from in-home face-to-face interviewing to telephone interviewing. However, the 2006 SCVS (SN 5784) returned to face-to-face interviewing after it was shown that the robustness of the data produced by the 2004 telephone survey could not be substantiated. From 2008-2009, the series name was changed to the present title, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, and it moved to a repeated annual cross-sectional schedule based on financial year. From 2012-13 the SCJS moved from annual to biennial survey covering the financial year however, the 2014-15 survey was the last biennial survey and currently the SCJS is conducted on an annual basis. See the documentation for further details.

Special Licence data
From 2012-13 only the Main Questionnaire data are available under standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement. The Victim Form and Self-Completion data are available under Special Licence (SL). The SL data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard EUL. Prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, 2021-2022 contains data from the SCJS Main Questionnaire only and is based on 5,516 face-to-face interviews with adults (aged 16 or over) living in private households in Scotland. The Victim Form questionnaire dataset is not included in this study.

Documentation

Users should note that the User Guide document was written to accompany the 2008/09 study, but the depositor advises that it is the latest version available and should be included here.

Main Topics:

The SCJS main questionnaire data file covers perceptions of crime, experience of and opinions on the justice system and police, experiences of cyber crime, and demographic details for the respondent and their household. Modular sections which are asked, respectively, of a quarter of the sample includes questions on local community, sentencing, civil law, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and harassment. It also contains the victim form screener (types of crimes which respondents / households may have experienced in the 12 months prior to interview) but data from the victim form itself (details of and experiences resulting from crimes) will be published as a separate dataset.

Crime Scotland - Criminal Justice Social Work Statistics

This dataset provides police recorded crime counts and related resident population estimates for all violence and burglary (housebreaking in Scotland) (data on burglary and violence is provided separately) for the financial years 2004-5 to 2015-16. This is a longitudinal data set with data aggregated by year to financial years (1st April in one year to 31st March in following year) for the years 2004-5 to 2015-16 inclusive. Data runs from 1st April 2004 as this is the date from which all nations had national crime recording standards for police recorded crime. The dataset has been prepared to provide comparative data at the regional level - in this case - local authority districts for Scotland, and Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) as at 2015-16 in England and Wales. Data for England and Wales are directly comparable. As Scotland, and England and Wales, have different legal systems, and different police crime recording standards, the recorded crime definitions of violence and burglary (housebreaking) used here aim to provide the best available comparable data between the countries, but precise definitions of violence and burglary (housebreaking) used in the Scottish, and the English and Welsh, legal systems are not the same. Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs), previously also called Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, are comprised of one or more English or Welsh district or unitary local authorities. Over time, some CSPs have merged and / or added additional local authorities to the partnership, this may also lead to change of partnership name. The CSPs used here are those current as listed in Home Office open data tables on recorded crime for 2015-16 (downloaded in February 2017). Police recorded crime data are data reported to and recorded by the police. Not all crimes are reported to the police, and not all reported crime are subsequently recorded. Data used from England Wales to derive this dataset do not have National Statistics status, this was withdrawn in January 2014. Data for Scotland had National Statistics status withdrawn in July 2014 but reinstated in September 2016. These data are derived entirely from open data as defined in the Open Government Licence version 3 (OGL3).

The Applied Quantitative Methods Network (AQMeN) Phase II is a Research Centre that aims to develop a dynamic and pioneering set of projects to improve our understanding of current social issues in the UK and provide policy makers and practitioners with the evidence to build a better future. Three principal cross-cutting research strands will exploit existing high-quality data resources: Education and Social Stratification will focus on social class differences in entry to, progression in and attainment at tertiary education and how they affect individuals' labour market outcomes and their civic participation; Crime and Victimisation will explore the dramatic change in crime rates in Scotland and other jurisdictions and examines the determinants and impact of criminal careers amongst populations of offenders; and Urban Segmentation and Inequality which will create innovative new measures of social segmentation and combine these with cutting-edge longitudinal and sorting-model techniques to explore the causes of neighbourhood segmentation, household location choice and neighbourhood inequalities. Five additional projects will focus on the referendum on Scottish independence, location dynamics and ethnicity and exploiting existing datasets. The research will fed into training activities and knowledge exchange events aimed at boosting capacity in quantitative methods amongst the UK social science community.

Scotland Crime - Firearm Offence Statistics

Scotland Crime - Fire Rescue Statistics

Between 2019/20 and 2023/24 there have been 47 homicide cases in the Glasgow City local authority area of Scotland, the most of any Scottish local authority in that time period. The City of Edinburgh had the second-highest number of homicides, at 24, while there were zero homicides in the Outer Hebrides.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) is a social survey which asks people about their experiences and perceptions of crime in Scotland. The survey is an important resource for both the government and public of Scotland. Respondents are selected at random from the Postal Address File and participation in the survey is entirely voluntary. The main aims of the SCJS are to:

• provide reliable statistics on people's experience of crime in Scotland, including services provided to victims of crime
• assess the varying risk of crime for different groups of people in the population
• examine trends in the level and nature of crime in Scotland over time
• collect information about people's experiences of, and attitudes on a range of crime and justice related issues

An important role of the SCJS is to provide an alternative and complementary measure of crime to police recorded crime statistics. For further details of the scope and methodology of the SCJS, please see documentation. Information about the survey and links to publications may be found on the Scottish Government's Scottish Crime and Justice Survey webpages.

Background and history of the SCJS
Previous surveys of victimisation in Scotland began with the Scottish components of the 1982 and 1988 sweeps of the British Crime Survey (BCS) (held at the Archive under SNs 4368 and 4599) The Scottish element of the 1988 BCS was also known as the Scottish Areas Crime Survey and coverage was limited in those early surveys to the areas south of the Caledonian Canal. From 2012, the BCS has been renamed the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) (held under GN 33174).

The first independent Scotland-only crime survey was commissioned by the Scottish Office in 1993 under the title of the Scottish Crime Survey (SCS) and was followed by repeated sweeps in 1996 (both years held together under SN 3813), and again in 2000 (SN 4542) and 2003 (SN 5756). In 2004 the survey underwent both a name change, to the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (SCVS) (SN 5757), and a major methodological change, with a move away from in-home face-to-face interviewing to telephone interviewing. However, the 2006 SCVS (SN 5784) returned to face-to-face interviewing after it was shown that the robustness of the data produced by the 2004 telephone survey could not be substantiated. From 2008-2009, the series name was changed to the present title, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, and it moved to a repeated annual cross-sectional schedule based on financial year. From 2012-13 the SCJS moved from annual to biennial survey covering the financial year however, the 2014-15 survey was the last biennial survey and currently the SCJS is conducted on an annual basis. See the documentation for further details.

Special Licence data
From 2012-13 only the Main Questionnaire data are available under standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement. The Victim Form and Self-Completion data are available under Special Licence (SL). The SL data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard EUL. Prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, 2021-2022 contains data from the SCJS Main Questionnaire only and is based on 5,516 face-to-face interviews with adults (aged 16 or over) living in private households in Scotland. The Victim Form questionnaire dataset is not included in this study.

Documentation

Users should note that the User Guide document was written to accompany the 2008/09 study, but the depositor advises that it is the latest version available and should be included here.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) is a social survey which asks people about their experiences and perceptions of crime in Scotland. The survey is an important resource for both the government and public of Scotland. Respondents are selected at random from the Postal Address File and participation in the survey is entirely voluntary. The main aims of the SCJS are to:

• provide reliable statistics on people's experience of crime in Scotland, including services provided to victims of crime
• assess the varying risk of crime for different groups of people in the population
• examine trends in the level and nature of crime in Scotland over time
• collect information about people's experiences of, and attitudes on a range of crime and justice related issues

An important role of the SCJS is to provide an alternative and complementary measure of crime to police recorded crime statistics. For further details of the scope and methodology of the SCJS, please see documentation. Information about the survey and links to publications may be found on the Scottish Government's Scottish Crime and Justice Survey webpages.

Background and history of the SCJS
Previous surveys of victimisation in Scotland began with the Scottish components of the 1982 and 1988 sweeps of the British Crime Survey (BCS) (held at the Archive under SNs 4368 and 4599) The Scottish element of the 1988 BCS was also known as the Scottish Areas Crime Survey and coverage was limited in those early surveys to the areas south of the Caledonian Canal. From 2012, the BCS has been renamed the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) (held under GN 33174).

The first independent Scotland-only crime survey was commissioned by the Scottish Office in 1993 under the title of the Scottish Crime Survey (SCS) and was followed by repeated sweeps in 1996 (both years held together under SN 3813), and again in 2000 (SN 4542) and 2003 (SN 5756). In 2004 the survey underwent both a name change, to the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (SCVS) (SN 5757), and a major methodological change, with a move away from in-home face-to-face interviewing to telephone interviewing. However, the 2006 SCVS (SN 5784) returned to face-to-face interviewing after it was shown that the robustness of the data produced by the 2004 telephone survey could not be substantiated. From 2008-2009, the series name was changed to the present title, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, and it moved to a repeated annual cross-sectional schedule based on financial year. From 2012-13 the SCJS moved from annual to biennial survey covering the financial year however, the 2014-15 survey was the last biennial survey and currently the SCJS is conducted on an annual basis. See the documentation for further details.

Special Licence data
From 2012-2013 only the Main Questionnaire data are available under standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement. The Victim Form and Self-Completion data are available under Special Licence (SL). The SL data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard EUL. Prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, 2018-2019: Special Licence Access, Victim Form Data study contains data from the Victim Form only. The Main Questionnaire data and all documentation for the SCJS 2018-2019 are available under SN 8795.

Main Topics:

The Victim form (repeated up to five times, based on information collected in the victim form screener section of the Main questionnaire) covers incident details, dates, experience of the criminal justice system and related issues (emotions, support and advice, perceptions of the incident, police contact, offender(s) prosecution, information and assistance, Procurator Fiscal, and attitudes towards offender prosecution and sentencing). The data is reveiwed by a team of specially trained Coders who assign and Offence Code to the incident. See documentation under SN 8795 for further details.

In the 2024/25 reporting year there were 299,111 crimes recorded by the police in Scotland, with 111,054 of these crimes categorized as crimes of dishonesty, the most common crime type in this year.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) is a social survey which asks people about their experiences and perceptions of crime in Scotland. The survey is an important resource for both the government and public of Scotland. Respondents are selected at random from the Postal Address File and participation in the survey is entirely voluntary. The main aims of the SCJS are to:

• provide reliable statistics on people's experience of crime in Scotland, including services provided to victims of crime
• assess the varying risk of crime for different groups of people in the population
• examine trends in the level and nature of crime in Scotland over time
• collect information about people's experiences of, and attitudes on a range of crime and justice related issues

An important role of the SCJS is to provide an alternative and complementary measure of crime to police recorded crime statistics. For further details of the scope and methodology of the SCJS, please see documentation. Information about the survey and links to publications may be found on the Scottish Government's Scottish Crime and Justice Survey webpages.

Background and history of the SCJS
Previous surveys of victimisation in Scotland began with the Scottish components of the 1982 and 1988 sweeps of the British Crime Survey (BCS) (held at the Archive under SNs 4368 and 4599) The Scottish element of the 1988 BCS was also known as the Scottish Areas Crime Survey and coverage was limited in those early surveys to the areas south of the Caledonian Canal. From 2012, the BCS has been renamed the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) (held under GN 33174).

The first independent Scotland-only crime survey was commissioned by the Scottish Office in 1993 under the title of the Scottish Crime Survey (SCS) and was followed by repeated sweeps in 1996 (both years held together under SN 3813), and again in 2000 (SN 4542) and 2003 (SN 5756). In 2004 the survey underwent both a name change, to the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (SCVS) (SN 5757), and a major methodological change, with a move away from in-home face-to-face interviewing to telephone interviewing. However, the 2006 SCVS (SN 5784) returned to face-to-face interviewing after it was shown that the robustness of the data produced by the 2004 telephone survey could not be substantiated. From 2008-2009, the series name was changed to the present title, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, and it moved to a repeated annual cross-sectional schedule based on financial year. From 2012-13 the SCJS moved from annual to biennial survey covering the financial year however, the 2014-15 survey was the last biennial survey and currently the SCJS is conducted on an annual basis. See the documentation for further details.

Special Licence data
From 2012-13 only the Main Questionnaire data are available under standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement. The Victim Form and Self-Completion data are available under Special Licence (SL). The SL data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard EUL. Prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, 2018-2019 contains data from the Main Questionnaire only and is based on around 5,500 face-to-face interviews with adults (aged 16 or over) living in private households in Scotland.

Main Topics:

The main questionnaire covered demographic details, perceptions of crime, justice system, policing, local community, sentencing, civil law, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and harassment as well as the victim form screener. It also includes experience of cyber crime (new for the 2018-19 survey).

Data from the victim form is available under SN 8796, and is subject to restrictive Special Licence Access conditions.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) is a social survey which asks people about their experiences and perceptions of crime in Scotland. The survey is an important resource for both the government and public of Scotland. Respondents are selected at random from the Postal Address File and participation in the survey is entirely voluntary. The main aims of the SCJS are to:

• provide reliable statistics on people's experience of crime in Scotland, including services provided to victims of crime
• assess the varying risk of crime for different groups of people in the population
• examine trends in the level and nature of crime in Scotland over time
• collect information about people's experiences of, and attitudes on a range of crime and justice related issues

An important role of the SCJS is to provide an alternative and complementary measure of crime to police recorded crime statistics. For further details of the scope and methodology of the SCJS, please see documentation. Information about the survey and links to publications may be found on the Scottish Government's Scottish Crime and Justice Survey webpages.

Background and history of the SCJS
Previous surveys of victimisation in Scotland began with the Scottish components of the 1982 and 1988 sweeps of the British Crime Survey (BCS) (held at the Archive under SNs 4368 and 4599) The Scottish element of the 1988 BCS was also known as the Scottish Areas Crime Survey and coverage was limited in those early surveys to the areas south of the Caledonian Canal. From 2012, the BCS has been renamed the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) (held under GN 33174).

The first independent Scotland-only crime survey was commissioned by the Scottish Office in 1993 under the title of the Scottish Crime Survey (SCS) and was followed by repeated sweeps in 1996 (both years held together under SN 3813), and again in 2000 (SN 4542) and 2003 (SN 5756). In 2004 the survey underwent both a name change, to the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (SCVS) (SN 5757), and a major methodological change, with a move away from in-home face-to-face interviewing to telephone interviewing. However, the 2006 SCVS (SN 5784) returned to face-to-face interviewing after it was shown that the robustness of the data produced by the 2004 telephone survey could not be substantiated. From 2008-2009, the series name was changed to the present title, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, and it moved to a repeated annual cross-sectional schedule based on financial year. From 2012-13 the SCJS moved from annual to biennial survey covering the financial year however, the 2014-15 survey was the last biennial survey and currently the SCJS is conducted on an annual basis. See the documentation for further details.

Special Licence data
From 2012-13 only the Main Questionnaire data are available under standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement. The Victim Form and Self-Completion data are available under Special Licence (SL). The SL data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard EUL. Prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, 2016-2017 contains data from the Main Questionnaire only and is based on around 5,500 face-to-face interviews with adults (aged 16 or over) living in private households in Scotland.

Scotland Crime - Fire Safety Organisational Statistics