Recorded Crime in Scotland: October 2020

Recorded Crime in Scotland: October 2020

This Official Statistics bulletin presents information on the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police in Scotland during October 2020. It also includes a comparison with the equivalent month of the previous year.

These Official Statistics were introduced from April 2020 to inform users about the volume and type of crimes and offences recorded in Scotland during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Whilst the restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the virus will have had an impact on the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police, some caution is advised before necessarily attributing all of the changes to this situation. For example, longer term trends in some types of offending, which existed prior to the pandemic, may remain a factor.

We originally planned to ask the Scottish Crime Recording Board (which oversees the production of Official Statistics on recorded crime in Scotland) to review in the autumn whether this monthly process should continue, including user feedback on the value of these statistics. However at this stage, given the increasing levels of the virus in Scotland, no changes are planned in the short term. As such, we will continue to publish these Official Statistics on a monthly basis and will consult with users when the above review takes place.

The annual Recorded Crime in Scotland bulletin remains the primary source of information on crimes and offences recorded by the police, and has been designated as National Statistics by the Office for Statistics Regulation. The most recent update, covering the 2019-20 reporting year, was published on 29^th September.

Statistics on crimes and offences recorded by the police provide a measure of the volume of criminal activity with which the police are faced. Crimes recorded by the police do not reveal the incidence of all crimes committed as not all crimes are reported to the police.