Domestic abuse: statistics recorded by the police in Scotland - 2013/14 and 2014/15

Introduction

This bulletin presents statistics on domestic abuse, based on details of incidents and recorded crime supplied by Police Scotland in 2013-14 and 2014-15. Incidents of domestic abuse recorded by the police do not reveal all incidents of domestic abuse in Scotland as not all incidents are reported to the police. The figures are used to inform policy and, in conjunction with the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (see Section 4), are used to assess the extent and nature of domestic abuse in Scotland.

The statistics set out in this bulletin on the number of incidents of domestic abuse recorded by police in Scotland cover the two years immediately following the establishment of the Police Service of Scotland (hence forth referred to as Police Scotland). Previous to this, figures were collected and presented by the eight legacy police force areas. With the resulting change to the process of collecting and quality assuring data for this publication, some caution should be exercised in interpreting the statistics on the number of incidents recorded across years (further information on these developments are provided in Section 2 and the Annexes).

The definition of domestic abuse used by Police Scotland is:

'Any form of physical, sexual or mental and emotional abuse [that] might amount to criminal conduct and which takes place within the context of a relationship. The relationship will be between partners (married, cohabiting, civil partnership or otherwise) or ex-partners. The abuse can be committed in the home or elsewhere'.