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1. Introduction
This bulletin forms part of The Scottish Executive series of bulletins on the criminal justice system. It covers those crimes and offences recorded by the police in which a firearm was alleged to have been used or where a firearm was stolen.
Not all such crimes and offences are reported to the police. The extent of under-reporting is likely to vary considerably according to the seriousness of the crime or offence; for example, armed robberies are much more likely to be reported to the police than malicious damage caused by the firing of an airweapon. Moreover, the propensity of the public to report crimes and offences to the police is influenced by a number of factors and may therefore change over time; thus trends in the number of crimes and offences recorded may differ from trends in the number of crimes and offences committed.
In April 2004, the police implemented the Scottish Crime Recording Standard ( SCRS), which means that no corroborative evidence is required initially to record a crime related incident as a crime if so perceived by the victim. In consequence of this more victim oriented approach, the introduction of this new recording standard was expected to increase the numbers of minor crimes recorded by the police, such as minor crimes of vandalism and petty assault. However, it was expected that the SCRS would not have much impact on the figures for the more serious crimes such as serious assault. The bulletin therefore presents separate figures for serious assault and petty assault in the relevant tables. For the first time, figures are presented on a financial year basis.
Chart 1 - Crimes and offences recorded by the police in which a firearm was alleged to have been used by main firearm used, Scotland, 1995/96-2004/05
(1) See comments in section 3.1.3.
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