Background to the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey
Crime and victimisation surveys have been carried out in Scotland since the early 1980s. In 1982 and 1988 a crime survey was carried out in central and southern Scotland as part of the British Crime Survey. The British Crime Survey ceased to cover Scotland with the first independent Scottish Crime Survey (SCS) launched in 1993 and extended the same design and sample size (5,000) to cover the whole of Scotland. Further sweeps of the SCS were conducted in 1996, 2000 and 2003. There were two further sweeps of the survey 2004 and 2006, when the surveyed was titled the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey.
The interviews for the SCJS began in April 2008 and will run until March 2010. It will interview approximately 16,000 households across Scotland per year. The findings from the SCJS will provide statistics on the extent of crime in Scotland, including crime that is not reported to the police. It will also provides details of respondents' attitudes towards the criminal justice system; perceptions of local and national crime and measures taken to ensure personal and household safety.