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Scottish Crime Recording Standard
04/03/2008
A number of recommendations to improve the consistency and transparency of police forces' application of the Scottish Crime Recording Standard have been made in a report published today by the Inspectorate of Constabulary.
These recommendations will help to ensure the standard is applied in the same way across Scotland and that the public, individual officers and other agencies know exactly what to expect when a potential crime is reported to the police.
The Recommendations include:
Forces should review the current processes by which the Scottish Crime Registrars Group manage changes, with a view to cutting out bureaucracy and streamlining the decision making process.
That, in order to resolve unnecessary inconsistencies identified by force crime registrars (FCRs), the Scottish Government should undertake an urgent review into the suitability of its counting rules for crime recording, in consultation with ACPOS, the SCRG and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).
That forces and the SCRG review the current ad hoc arrangements for SCRS training with the aim of securing, within specified timescales, a standardised, national approach from the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA).
That, without delay, forces work together to finalise a policy to standardise the identification of crimes that do not require further or full investigation.
That, in order to achieve greater transparency and consistency within the audit regime, forces agree to co-ordinate individual force crime audits through the SCRG so that each audit is scrutinised by a crime registrar from a neighbouring force. On an annual basis HMICS will dip-sample crime audits across all forces, including British Transport Police and Ministry of Defence Police.
The Assistant Inspector of Constabulary Malcolm R Dickson said:
"The Scottish Crime Recording Standard was introduced to provide uniformity across Scotland in crime recording standards as well as to encourage an approach which addresses the needs of the victims of crime.
"We believe that this has led to an increase in the consistency of decision making and crime recording across Scotland, as well as delivering real benefits to victims and forces. However, as with any new standard or development of this sort, there are some teething problems that need to be tackled.
"Our report sets out what action should be taken by the forces and other bodies such as the Government and ACPOS, to build on what has already been achieved. We would like to see more commonality in how each of the Justice agencies categorise crime, and a uniform policy for identifying crimes that do not require full investigation. This is intended to return some discretion to constables on the street: we found that some felt that they had to apply the same level of detailed investigation to every crime, no matter how minor.
"Basically what we are saying is that it is very important to record every crime reported but this doesn't mean that officers should put as much follow-up effort into investigating the apparent theft of a wheelie-bin as they would into a robbery where someone is hurt. In fact we're encouraging police forces to develop systems to help officers and their supervisors make early decisions about what is appropriate for each crime and victim, so that the best possible use can be made of their valuable time and effort.
"We will continue to monitor the application of the Crime Recording Standard across Scottish forces and hope the delivery of these recommendations will improve how the standard works in practice."
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland (commonly known as the Police Inspectorate or HMICS) is responsible for inspecting the eight Scottish police forces and five police services. HMICS operates independently of the police forces, police authorities and the Scottish Government and exists to monitor and improve the police services in Scotland.