Definitions of Keywords | Victimisation: where an individual or household has been the victim of a crime. Personal crime: Crimes where the person is victimised, covering personal theft, robbery, attempted assault, minor assault (assault involving no or negligible injury) and serious assault (assault involving more serious injury). Household crime: Crimes where the household is victimised, covering housebreaking, theft of and from motor vehicles, other household theft, theft from a dwelling/theft from outside a dwelling, bicycle theft, and vandalism of property (including motor vehicles). Overall personal and household victimisation rates: for the purposes of this indicator, this refers to the proportion of people who have been a victim of one or more crimes counted by the survey during the previous year (the prevalence of victimisation). |
Evidence Source | The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey ( SCJS) Scotland's crime survey, the SCJS, measures crime by interviewing a representative sample of Scotland's population about their experiences of crime in the past year. The survey includes crime that may not have been reported to the police (and therefore may not be recorded in other statistics), providing a more accurate estimate of the extent of victimisation in Scotland of crimes covered by the survey. The crime survey in Scotland was conducted as part of the British Crime Survey in 1982 and 1988. From 1993 to 2003 a Scotland specific survey was conducted under the title 'Scottish Crime Survey' ( SCS) and then as the 'Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey'( SCVS) in 2004 and 2006. From 2008 the crime survey in Scotland will run continuously under the title 'Scottish Crime and Justice Survey' ( SCJS) with a larger sample size, providing data annually at Police Force level from 2008/09. The survey asks respondents about crimes that happened to them in the 'recall' period; this is usually the 12 months before the survey interview. This means, for instance, that data collected in 2008/09 will be about crimes that happened in 2007/08. Each survey report provides more detail about the recall periods: Scottish Crime Survey ( SCS) 1993: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/1999/01/66575548-b5a9-441f-834a-da44182da2af 1996: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/1998/12/5d2711f3-543b-4a34-9973-05bbba9e202e 2000: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2002/05/14407/1405 2003: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/12/20379/48077 Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey ( SCVS) 2004: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/01/16115536/0 2006: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/10/12094216/0 Scottish Crime and Justice Survey ( SCJS) First publication expected in 2009 |
Baseline and Past Trends | Baseline data will be available in 2009, based on data for financial year 2007/08. Data will then be available annually at Scotland level. Previous estimates for this measure are available from previous Scottish Crime Surveys, but may not be directly comparable to future figures due to the change to continuous fieldwork sampling as opposed to sampling at fixed intervals. Past trends are set out in the table below: 
1. Individual weight is applied for 'All SCVS Crimes' 2. Source: 2006 SCVS, n = 4988; 2004 SCVS, n = 3034; 2003 SCS, n = 5,041; 2000 SCS, n = 5,059; 1996 SCS, n = 5,045; 1993 SCS, n = 5,030 Chart: Proportion of respondents who were a victim of 1 or more crimes as measured by the survey 
Source:1992-2002 data from the 1993 to 2003 Scottish Crime Surveys, 2003/04 and 2005/06 data from the 2004 and 2006 Scottish Crime and Victimisation Surveys
Note: Individual weight is applied for all 'SCVS crimes'
1992 n=5,030, 1995 n=5,045 , 1999 n=5,059, 2002 n= 5,041, 2003/04 n= 3,034 2005/06 n=4,988 |
Methodology | Estimates of the prevalence of victimisation are produced using weighted analysis of survey data, along with 95% confidence intervals to give indications of the accuracy of the estimates. Full details are available in the SCVS Technical Report 2006, available upon request. |