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RECORDED CRIME IN SCOTLAND, 2003
6. Scottish Crime Survey
6.1 The preceding sections of this bulletin described the volume and types of crime recorded and cleared up by the eight police forces in Scotland during 2003 and 2003/04. The recorded crime series is generally a useful indicator of trends in recorded crime. However, not all crimes are reported to the police and, of those crimes that are, not all are subsequently recorded. The propensity of the public to report crime to the police also changes over time. Thus, statistics recorded by the police may not accurately reflect the underlying trend in all crime. This will be particularly the case next year for the trends shown by the recorded crime figures for 2004/05; as the figures will be affected by the police introduction of a new Scottish Crime Recording Standard (SCRS). The new crime recording standard is expected to increase the numbers of minor crimes recorded by the police such as minor crimes of vandalism and minor thefts. Although it is not anticipated to have much impact on the figures for the more serious crimes such as serious assault, sexual assault, robbery or housebreaking, trends in overall recorded crime will be affected.
6.2 Crime surveys can be a useful source of information by providing a fuller picture of the extent of and trends in most types of household and personal victimisation. The information provided by such surveys complements the information compiled by the police forces and provides another useful indicator as well as exploring other issues such as the impact of crime on victims, public anxieties and reactions to crime and attitudes towards the police. The Scottish Crime Survey (SCS) was run again in 2003 in relation to crimes and offences experienced in 2002 and results should be available shortly after the publication of this bulletin. Furthermore, the Scottish Executive is introducing a new, improved Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey, with a substantially increased sample size. This improved survey will monitor the underlying trends in crime between 2003/04 and 2004/05, when the trends in the recorded crime figures will be affected by the introduction of the new recording standard.
6.3 Findings from the 2000 SCS are summarised in bullet form below. Further details can be found in Crime and Criminal Justice Research Findings No. 51 "The 2000 Scottish Crime Survey: " First Results" and " The 2000 Scottish Crime Survey: Overview Report".
- Estimates derived from the 2000 SCS suggest that in 1999 just over 840,000 crimes were committed against individuals and private households in Scotland. This was 13 per cent less than the number of crimes in 1995 estimated from the 1996 SCS.
- Over 60 per cent of crimes experienced in 1999 were against property and of these about half involved motor vehicles. Vehicle-related crime (vandalism, thefts and attempted thefts of and from cars) fell by 30 per cent from approximately 337,600 crimes in 1995 to approximately 237,600 in 1999.
- Only certain categories of crime are directly comparable between the SCS figures and the police statistics. For the sub-set of comparable crimes which can be compared with the police recorded crime statistics, namely vandalism, housebreaking, theft of a motor vehicle, theft of a bicycle, robbery and assault, an estimated 33 per cent of SCS crimes ended up in the statistics of crimes recorded by the police in 1999. This was slightly below the proportion in 1995 (37 per cent).
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