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Introduction

Following a Fundamental Review of the Scottish Crime Survey in 2003, the Scottish Executive substantially revised the methods used to estimate victimisation in Scotland. The new Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey ( SCVS) was established with a substantially increased sample (up to 27,000 annually from 5,000 every three years or so), continuous fieldwork and a switch to data collection by telephone.

As part of a calibration exercise comparing the previous and newly designed methodologies, MORI Scotland and TNS Social were jointly commissioned to undertake a face-to-face survey involving 3,000 interviews that repeated the data collection from previous sweeps of the Scottish Crime Survey ( SCS). A full report of the calibration exercise has been published. ¹ This report presents the main findings of that survey related to victimisation and respondents' perceptions of crime and other issues.

Main Findings

• Around 940,000 crimes were committed against households and individuals in Scotland between 1 April 2003 and 31 March 2004. Sixty per cent of crimes were against property and these mainly involved acts of vandalism against vehicles and other property.
• Just over one in every five respondents had experienced a crime against themselves or their household. Vandalism was the most common with 15% of households having experienced at least one incident in the previous year. One in every twenty adults reported at least one incident of personal crime in the previous year.
• Almost one in four crimes involved violence. Petty assault accounts for most of the violent crime and are almost 10 times more prevalent than serious assaults.
• Crime is perceived by almost 60% of adults as a big problem facing Scotland today. There is greater concern about crime than about standards of health care, housing, education or public transport.
• The experience of crime is strongly related to the type of area people live in. Households in the areas classified as most deprived using the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation experience more crime and anti-social behaviour than the least deprived areas.

Methodology

Although conducted on a smaller scale than previous sweeps of the SCS, which had samples of about 5,000 interviews, the 2004 face-to-face element of the SCVS involved the same basic approach as previous sweeps. A stratified random sample of addresses was selected in 455 clusters across mainland Scotland and the main inhabited islands. Three thousand interviews were carried out with a randomly-selected adult and details of crimes experienced by the household and the individual (up to a maximum of five) in the previous year were collected. The reference period for the survey was from 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004. The survey produced an adjusted response rate of 67%.

As is the case with all sample surveys (including previous Scottish Crime Surveys), levels of victimisation and other data recorded by the survey are best estimates of the likely levels that would be found in the population as a whole. The estimates are subject to margins of error, which are mainly a function of the sample size. They might also be affected by bias caused by differences in the likelihood of different groups in the population agreeing to participate in the survey and differences in whether people perceive incidents to be a crime and whether they report them in the survey.

The smaller sample size in 2004 means that the data from the survey are less precise than those from previous surveys and this has been taken into account in reporting differences between surveys.

Levels of crime

The 2004 survey suggests that between 1 April 2003 and 31 March 2004 there were just over 940,000 crimes committed against households and individuals in Scotland. Sixty per cent of these were committed against property - mainly motor vehicles and property vandalism, which accounted for over 40% of all crimes and two-thirds of the property crimes.

Figure 1: Distribution of crime in 2003/2004 ²

Broadly, the level and distribution of crimes in 2003/2004 is similar to that recorded by the survey for 2002 and 1999.

The prevalence of crime is generally reported in relation to the 'at risk' population. Thus household crime is expressed in terms of incidents per 10,000 households, personal crimes as per 10,000 adults and crimes involving motor vehicles and bicycles as per 10,000 vehicle and bicycle owning households respectively. Between 2002 and 2003/2004 there were no significant changes in the prevalence of individual categories of crime although the overall prevalence of household crime showed a decline.

Table 1: Incidence of crime 2003/2004 ³

Just over one in five respondents (21%) had experienced either any personal or household crime in 2003/2004, which is similar to the proportion recorded by the survey in 2000 and 2003.

Fifteen per cent of households had experienced at least one incident of property crime in the survey year, with vandalism to motor vehicles and property and theft from motor vehicles being the most common crimes. Five per cent of individuals had experienced at least one incident of personal crime, with petty assaults being most common. Compared with serious assaults, petty assaults are almost 10 times more common, with a prevalence rate of just under 500 per 10,000 adults compared with serious assaults with 54 per 10,000 adults.

Reporting to the police

Overall, 44% of crimes recorded by the survey came to the attention of the police. In about three-quarters of reported incidents, the offence was reported by the respondent or someone else in the household. Where the incident had not been reported to the police, the main reasons given were that the police would not have been able to do anything (35% of unreported incidents), the incident was too trivial (35%) or the police would not have been interested (19%).

Table 2: Proportion of all incidents of the main crime types reported to the police

Public perceptions of crime and social problems

From a range of social problems asked about in the survey, crime is the third most commonly rated as 'a big problem' after drug abuse and alcohol abuse, other social issues such as unemployment, housing conditions and standards of education and public transport are rated as less of a problem ⁴.

Table 3: Perceptions of problems

The extent to which crime is rated as a big problems differs between urban and rural areas and in terms of the relative deprivation of the area in which respondents lived. In general, urban areas, which also tend to be more deprived, were more likely to view crime as a big problem than rural and less deprived areas (Figures 2 and 3).

Figure 2: Perception of crime as 'a big problem' by Scottish Executive urban/rural classification

Figure 3: Perception of crime as 'a big problem' by SIMD quintiles

Specific types of crime

Half of the survey sample was asked to say how common they thought various types of crime were in their area. Property crimes such as vandalism and vehicle crime were most likely to be seen as very or fairly common offences, although violent crime was also seen as common, with a quarter of those asked saying that people being attacked or assaulted in the street or other public places was very or fairly common.

There is significant variation by area type with respondents in more deprived areas generally twice as likely to believe that crimes were very or fairly common. Table 4 shows perceptions of the frequency of different types of crime vary between the most deprived fifth of areas and the least deprived fifth.

Violent street crime shows the largest difference between the most deprived and least deprived fifth of areas. Respondents in the most deprived areas are four times more likely to think that it is very or fairly common either for people to be mugged or robbed or for people to be attacked or assaulted in the street or other public place. The least variation was in terms of housebreaking and sexual assault.

The incidents of crimes recorded by the survey show that although personal crime is rare, residents in the most deprived areas are more likely to actually experience crimes than are residents of the least deprived areas. Seven per cent of adults in the most deprived areas reported one or more incident of personal crime compared with 4% of adults in the least deprived areas. There is no difference in the experience of property crimes across areas.

Figure 4: Proportion of adults experiencing any personal crimes by SIMD quintiles

Table 4: Perceptions of how common various types of crime are in respondent's area: percentage of respondents in each SIMD quintile saying each is 'very' or 'fairly' common

Changes in crime over the previous two years.

Respondents who had lived at their current address for two years or more were asked about changes in the crime rate in their area over the previous two years. Almost 40% felt that crime in their area had got worse over the period with 19% saying there was 'a lot more' crime and 21% saying there was 'a little more'. As with their 'perceptions of crime as a big problem' (Figure 3 above) respondents in the more deprived areas were more likely to say that there had been a lot more crime in their area over the previous years.

Figure 5: Percentage in each SIMD quintile saying there had been 'a lot more' crime in their area over the previous two years.

Related to the level of area deprivation, respondents in social rented housing were more likely to say there had been a lot more crime in there in the previous two years (30%) than those is owner-occupied housing (16%) or private rented housing (14%).

Safety and fear of crime

Safety 'when walking alone in this area after dark' strongly related to area deprivation. Compared with 36% of respondents in the least deprived 10% of areas, only 18% of respondents in the most deprived 10% said they felt 'very safe' when walking alone in their local area after dark. Not surprisingly, this is also related to the extent to which respondents felt crime rates had got worse in the previous two years - those who felt crime had got worse, were less likely to feel safe walking alone after dark.

There is a much weaker relationship between area deprivation and respondents' safety when at home alone at night. Respondents in the most deprived areas are less likely to feel very safe than those in the least deprived areas but whereas the percentage of respondents in the most deprived areas feeling very safe when walking alone in the area was half that of the least deprived areas, 60% of respondents in the most deprived areas feel safe when alone at home at night compared with 77% of respondents in the least deprived areas.

These differences are reflected in other related characteristics - respondents in large and other urban areas feel less safe than those in rural and remote rural areas; those in social rented housing feel less safe than those in owner-occupied housing (59% say they feel very safe compared with 70% of owner-occupiers). However, the classification of areas in terms of deprivation remains the strongest predictor of respondents' perceptions of safety.

Respondents' general 'fear of crime' provides a broader measure of the extent to which people are concerned about their own safety and the safety of their property. Overall, only 6% of respondents report being more than 'sometimes' worried about being a victim of crime - worrying 'all the time' or 'most of the time'. This only increased substantially where respondents reported that there had been 'a lot more' crime in their area in the previous two years but even among these respondents only 17% worried more often than 'sometimes'. As with other indicators, there is a fairly consistent relationship with area deprivation, with respondents in the more deprived areas reporting higher levels of anxiety about potentially being a victim of crime than those in less deprived areas, reflecting the higher levels of personal crime recorded in the more deprived areas .

Figure 6: Fear of crime - percentage worrying about being a victim of crime 'all the time' or 'most of the time' by SIMD quintiles

Anti-social behaviour

Like perceptions of the frequency of crime, perceptions of anti-social behaviour vary significantly between the most and least deprived areas, with residents in the more deprived areas consistently more likely to report being affected by each type of ASB. The only exception to this in the reported prevalence of speeding traffic, where all areas types were equally likely to say they are affected.

Although discriminatory attacks and harassment were the least common type of anti-social behaviour in all areas, residents of the most deprived areas were three times more likely to say that they are affected by people being attacked or harassed because of their skin colour, ethnic origin, or religion.

Respondents in the most deprived areas were twice as likely as those in the least deprived areas to say that they were affected by drug related ASB such as people dealing in or using drugs.

Table 5: Perceptions of anti-social behaviour: percentage of households in each SIMD quintile saying each has 'some effect' or a 'big effect' on their quality of life

Change in ASB over previous two years

In many areas there is a perception that problems of anti-social behaviour are becoming worse. Although common across all areas, this perception is more common is areas more likely to experience ASB - the most deprived areas.

Figure 7: Change in 'problems in this area' over the previous two years: percentage saying 'got a lot worse' or 'got a little worse'

Home security and insurance

Almost all households take basic security measures against burglary, with deadlocks and double locking doors and window locks being the most common. However, over a quarter of households do not take these measures. More advanced measures such as burglar alarms are very rare, with a quarter of households having a burglar alarm, 17% having security marked their valuables and just 2% using CCTV.

Table 6: Percentage of households with various security measures

There is no link between whether or not respondents reported being affected by 'fear of crime' and the presence or absence of home security measures. Fear of crime appears to be primarily related to concerns about personal safety rather than the security of property. Among those reporting high fear of crime (giving a score of 7 or more to the impact of fear of crime on their quality of life), about 50% said they never go out in their area after dark compared with 26% overall.

Households that had ever been burgled (23%) have more security measures; in particular they are more likely to have a burglar alarm, lights on a timer or sensor switch, double locks or deadlocks. Among households that had ever been broken into, 82% had taken two or more of the measures listed above whereas this proportion was 72% for households that had never been broken into.

Households with no home contents insurance (16% of all households) are twice as likely to have taken none of the security measures listed in Table 6 - 13% compared with only 6% of households with contents insurance.

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Email: socialresearch@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Website: www.scotland.gov.uk/socialresearch

This document (and other Research Findings and Reports) and information about social research in the Scottish Executive may be viewed on the Internet at: www.scotland.gov.uk/socialresearch

This document (and other Research Findings and Reports) and information about social research in the Scottish Executive may be viewed on the Internet at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/socialresearch

The site carries up-to-date information about social and policy research commissioned and published on behalf of the Scottish Executive. Subjects covered include transport, housing, social inclusion, rural affairs, children and young people, education, social work, community care, local government, civil justice, crime and criminal justice, regeneration, planning and women's issues. The site also allows access to information about the Scottish Household Survey.

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