« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
Measurement of the Extent of Youth Crime
in Scotland
7 FINAL CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
7.1 It is possible from existing data sources to provide
estimates of youth crime levels in Scotland, but given the
limitations of these sources and the number of significant
assumptions that had to be made to produce them, they
should only be treated as being indicative of the true
level of youth crime and not, in any way, definitive
counts.
7.2 We estimate that young people are responsible for
just over 40% of all crimes and offences in Scotland, with
much higher proportions for crimes involving vandalism and
fire-raising and dishonesty. Most youth crime is
theft-related.
7.3 This exercise should be seen as a "one-off". We
would not advise that the same method is used year-on-year
to track levels of youth crime. This is principally because
criminal justice policy and the implementation of this
policy by the criminal justice agencies will be the main
variables in determining the number of youths apprehended
for offences rather than the changing behaviour of youths.
For example, any "crackdown" on certain types of crime
associated with young people, such as vandalism, should see
the proportion of young people going through the Children's
Hearing system or the courts increasing, even if the number
of these offences being committed by young people remains
the same, and, as a consequence, our method of estimating
youth crime will show an increase in crimes due to young
people even when none has occurred.
7.4 It is much more difficult to produce estimates of
anti-social behaviour types. In fact, we would conclude
that, with the exception of criminal forms of anti-social
behaviour like vandalism and fire-raising that are
separately recorded in the crime statistics, we do not
think that it is possible to provide estimates of types
anti-social behaviour from existing data sources. Even if
we could, it would perhaps be unhelpful in any case given
that the definition of anti-social behaviour is so
subjective and different types of behaviour affect
different people in different ways. We would argue that it
is much more helpful to consider anti-social behaviour in
terms of the number of people it affects and its impact on
people. There are already existing sources that attempt to
do this, like the SHS. The SHS found littering and groups
of young people hanging around to be those most commonly
identified by people, but it is not clear from the survey
as to just how significant a problem such behaviour is for
communities or how much of anti-social behaviour is
attributable to young people.
7.5 The concept of fear of youth crime is even more
problematic. There are no existing sources that attempt to
measure this concept and there remains much discussion
within the criminal justice field as to what "fear of
crime" actually constitutes. Again, there is evidence from
sources like Eurobarometer, that attempt to measure the
fear of crime (not just youth crime) and, again, we would
suggest that this concept is considered in terms of its
impact on people. From what evidence that is available,
there does seem to be more anxiety about crime in Scotland
and the rest of the UK compared to most of the rest of
Europe, particularly violent crime, car crime and
burglary.
« Previous | Contents | Next »