Cost crisis and crime in Scotland

Footnotes

1. Also referred to simply as the 'cost crisis' to acknowledge the significant pressures on businesses, public and third sector services, as well as households.

2. BBC News: 'Mortgage payments set to jump by £500 for one million households', 12/07/2023.

3. The Guardian: 'UK homeowners face huge rise in payments when fixed-rate mortgages expire', 17/06/2023.

4. Scottish Government, Economy and Labour Market, Scotland's GDP 2023, Quarter 1 First Quarterly Estimate

5. Krisberg, B., Guzman, C. and Vuong, L. (2009). Crime and Economic Hard Times. National Council.

6. Uggen, C. (2012). Crime and the great recession. Recession Trends. Stanford, CA: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.

7. Field, S. (1999). Trends in Crime Revisited. Home Office Research Study.

8. Fallahi, F., Rodriguez, G. (2013). 'Link between unemployment and crime in the US: A Markov-Switching approach', Social Science Research, 45: 33-45.

9. Raphael, S. & Winter-Ebmer, R. (2001). 'Identifying the Effect of Unemployment on Crime', The Journal of Law & Economics, 44: 259-283.

10. Levitt, S. (2004). 'Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not', Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18: 163-190.

11. Nordin, M., Almen, D. (2017). 'Long-term unemployment and violent crime', Empirical Economics, 52: 1-29.

12. Ibid.

13. Field, S. (1999). Trends in Crime Revisited. Home Office Research Study. & Raphael, S. & Winter-Ebmer, R. (2001). 'Identifying the Effect of Unemployment on Crime', The Journal of Law & Economics, 44: 259-283.

14. Britt, C.L. (1997). 'Considering the Unemployment and Crime Relationship: Variation by Age Group and Historical Period', Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 13: 405-428.

15. Fox, C., Albertson, K., Ellison, M. & Martin, T. (2011). 'How will the recession affect crime rates in Greater Manchester?', Safer Communities, 10: 17-30.

16. The figure for recorded crime excludes Group 5 (crimes against society). This is due to the possibility that police activity and operational decisions can have some influence on the volume of crime recorded in this group (such as drug possessions identified on police patrols). Group 2 (sexual crimes) has also been excluded. This group is subject to legislative changes which have had some impact on what crimes are recorded. Figures may also have been affected by societal changes such as increased access to technology, meaning that cyber-sexual crime has become more prevalent in recent years, as well as an increased willingness to report recent and historic instances of sexual crime.

17. Guardian. 16th May 2023. 'CMA denies blocking Microsoft-Activision deal is bad for UK's reputation; unemployment rises – as it happened'.

18. Bank of England, Monetary Policy Report, August 2023.

19. Machin, S., Meghir, C. (2004). 'Crime and Economic Incentives' in The Journal of Human Resources, XXXIX: 958-929.

20. Ibid.

21. Gould, E.D., Weinberg, B.A. & Mustard, D.B. (2002). 'Crime Rate and Local Labor Market Opportunities in the United States: 1979-1997' in The Review of Economics and Statistics, 84: 45-61.

22. Hansen, K., Machin, S. (2003). 'Spatial Crime Patterns and the Introduction of the UK Minimum Wage' in Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 64: 677 – 697.

23. Tiratelli, M., Bradford, B. & Yesberg, J. (2022). 'The Political Economy of Crime: Did Universal Credit Increase Crime Rates?' in The British Journal of Criminology, XX: 1-18.

24. Ibid.

25. The Scottish Government uses three-year averages to look at trends in income and poverty in Scotland. A key issue to be aware of in using this data is that, due to the missing data for 2020-21, the only three-year period that includes the impact of the pandemic is 2019-2022, which includes data only for 2019-20 and 2021-22.

26. Update on poverty and income statistics for scotland 2021-22 | FAI (fraserofallander.org)

27. The Gini coefficient measures income inequality on a scale from 0% to 100%. A Gini of 100% means that only one person has an income, and everyone else has none. A Gini of 0% means that everyone has the same income. The Gini coefficient of inequality is widely used, and it is based on the whole distribution. But it is sometimes considered overly sensitive to changes in the middle, and not sensitive enough to changes at the top and the bottom.

28. Update on poverty and income statistics for scotland 2021-22 | FAI (fraserofallander.org)

29. Whitworth, A. (2011). 'Inequality and Crime across England: A Multilevel Modelling Approach' in Social Policy & Society, 11: 27-40.

30. Kelly, M. (2000). 'Inequality and Crime' in The Review of Economics and Statistics, 82: 530-539.

31. Choe, J. (2008). 'Income inequality and crime in the United States' in Economics Letters, 101: 21-33.

32. Wilkinson, R. (2004). 'Why is Violence More Common Where Inequality is Greater?' in Annals New York Academic of Science, 1036: 1-12.

33. Hicks, D. L., Hicks, J. H. (2012). 'Jealous of the Joneses: Conspicuous Consumption, Inequality, and Crime' in Oxford Economic Papers, 66: 1090-1120.

34. Update on poverty and income statistics for Scotland 2021-22 | FAI (fraserofallander.org)

35. The Scottish Government uses three-year averages to look a trends in income and poverty in Scotland. A key issue to be aware of in using this data is that, due to the missing data for 2020-21, the only three-year period that includes the impact of the pandemic is 2019-2022, which includes data only for 2019-20 and 2021-22.

36. Poverty and Income Inequality in Scotland 2019-22 (data.gov.scot)

37. Webster, C. S., Kingston, S. (2014). Anti-Poverty Strategies for the UK: Poverty and Crime Review, Project Report. Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

38. McAra, L., McVie, S. (2016). 'Understanding youth violence: The mediating effects of gender, poverty and vulnerability' in Journal of Criminal Justice, 45: 71-77.

39. Ibid

40. Gaitán-Rossi, P., Guadarrama, C. (2021). 'A systematic literature review of the mechanisms linking crime and poverty' in Convergencia Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 28: 1-25.

41. Ibid

42. Field, S. (1999). Trends in Crime Revisited. Home Office Research Study. & Hale, C. (1998). 'Crime and the Business Cycle in Post-War Britain Revisited', The British Journal of Criminology, 38: 681-698.

43. Field, S. (1999). Trends in Crime Revisited. Home Office Research Study.

44. Home Office. (2014). 'The heroin epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s and its effect on crime trends – then and now'.

45. Glaeser, E.L., Sacerdote, B. & Scheinkman, J.A. (1996). 'Crime and Social Interaction', The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 111: 507-548.

46. INDEX=TRUE">Ormerod, P. (2005). Crime: Economic Incentives and Social Networks. Institute of Economic Affairs: London.

47. Vollard, B., Hamed, J. (2012). ‘Why the Police Have an Effect on Violent Crime After All: Evidence from the British Crime Survey’, The Journal of Law & Economics, 55: 901-924. & Levitt, S. D., (2002). ‘Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effects of Police on Crime: Reply’, American Economic Review, 92: 1244-1250.

48. Lochner, L., Moretti, E. (2004). ‘The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests and Self-Reports’, American Economic Review, 94: 155-189.

49. Farrell, G. & Tilley, N. (2016). 'Technology for Crime and Crime Prevention: A Supply Side Analysis, Crime Prevention in the 21st Century: 377-388.

50. Silalahi Nuth, M. (2008). 'Taking Advantage of New Technologies: For and Against Crime', Computer & Law Security Revew, 24: 437-446.

51. Wermink, H., Apel, R., Niewbeerta, P. & Blokland, A.A.J. (2013). 'The Incapacitation Effect of First-Time Imprisonment: A Matched Samples Comparison', Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 29: 579-600.

52. Kleck, G., Sever, B., Li, S. & Gertz, M. (2005). 'The Missing Link in General Deterrence Research', Crimonology, 43: 623-660.

53. Kelly, M. (2000). 'Inequality and Crime' in The Review of Economics and Statistics, 82: 530-539.

54. Field, S. (1999). Trends in Crime Revisited. Home Office Research Study.

55. The figure for recorded crime does not include all crime types. Group 5 (crimes against society) has been excluded from the analysis, this is due to the possibility that operational decisions by the police can influence the volume of crime recorded in this group.

56. Housebreaking is an aggravation of theft where a person enters a building or part of a building without permission and proceeds to steal property from within. For many people this means that someone has entered your house without permission and stolen property from inside your house. As defined by Police Scotland.

57. As shown in Figure 2 on page 8.

58. Update on poverty and income statistics for scotland 2021-22 | FAI (fraserofallander.org)

59. The Scottish Government uses three-year averages to look at trends in income and poverty in Scotland. A key issue to be aware of in using this data is that, due to the missing data for 2020-21, the only three-year period that includes the impact of the pandemic is 2019-2022, which includes data only for 2019-20 and 2021- 22.

60. Update on poverty and income statistics for scotland 2021-22 | FAI (fraserofallander.org)

61. It should be noted, however, that the Scottish Government’s preferred measure of income inequality, the Palma ratio (which looks at total income of the top 10% and divides this by the total income of the bottom forty percent of the population) is falling. The Gini coefficient, another measure of income inequality, is also falling.

62. Due to local government reorganisation, data for 1975 is not available and has been excluded from the time series.

63. Levitt, S. (2004). ‘Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18: 163-190.

64. There are over 500 types of crimes and offences recorded by police in Scotland. To present these in a meaningful way, they are combined into distinct groups and categories. There are now six crime groups and three offence groups. These groups are made up of 50 categories, referred to as the ‘Top 50’.

65. The UK victimisation surveys capture unreported crime, but only produce estimates and are limited to the topics covered in the survey. Furthermore, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey has only operated since 2008 in its current iteration.

66. An increase in recorded crime can be seen in 2004 when the Scottish Crime Recording Standard was introduced.

67. Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2021-2022

68. Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, Crime for Survey England and Wales, Northern Ireland Community Safety Survey

69. At the time of writing this the 2019/20 report is the most recent Scottish Crime and Justice Survey publication.

70. Methodological information about this survey is very limited and these numbers should be treated with caution.

71. ONS. (March 2022). Recent drivers of UK consumer price inflation: March 2022.

72. Cyber crime: a review of the evidence summary - (GOV.UK)

73. Fraud and Error in the Benefit System 2019 to 2020 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

74. Scottish Crime and Justice Survey 2019/20: Cyber Crime

75. Advance fee frauds occur when a payment is made to fraudsters, who claim to be in a position of authority, to transfer money or for a promise of employment, wealth or gifts (including lottery scams and inheritance fraud).

76. Consumer and retail frauds occur when goods or services were paid for but failed to materialise, were misrepresented at point of sale, or were faulty or stolen. This includes bogus callers, ticketing fraud, phone scams and computer software service fraud.

77. ‘Cyber related’ represents cases where the internet or any type of online activity was related to any aspect of the offence.