Public Perceptions of Organised Crime in Scotland

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 To help explore public perceptions of organised crime in Scotland, the Scottish Government commissioned a module of questions in the spring wave of the Ipsos MORI Scottish Public Opinion Monitor, a quarterly telephone survey carried out among a representative sample of c.1,000 adults (18+) in Scotland.

1.2 The Scottish Public Opinion Monitor is a multi-client survey carried out by telephone among a random sample of adults across Scotland every quarter. Respondents are selected using random digit dialling and, to ensure the achieved sample is broadly representative of the Scottish adult population (18+), sample quotas are set on age, sex and working status and region. All interviews are conducted using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI).

1.3 For this wave, a total of 1,001 respondents across Scotland were interviewed between 29^th April and 5^th May 2013.

1.4 The data are weighted to match the known profile of the Scottish population by age, sex and working status using census data; tenure using Scottish Household Survey data; and public-private sector employment using Scottish Government Quarterly public sector employment series data.

1.5 Table 1.6 shows both the weighted and unweighted profile by age, sex and working status in the achieved sample.

Table 1: Sample profile - age, sex and working status

Reporting and interpretation

1.6 For the purposes of analysis, computer tables were prepared and responses to each survey question were analysed against a number of variables, namely:

• sex
• age (four groups: 18 to 24 years; 25 to 34 years; 35 to 54 years; and 55 years and over)
• employment status (four groups: working full time; working part-time; not working; and retired)
• employment sector
• tenure (three groups: owner occupier; rent from social landlord; and rent from private landlord)
• children aged under 16 living in the household (two groups: yes and no)
• Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintiles: five point scale ranging from 20% most deprived datazones in Scotland to 20% least deprived datazones in Scotland
• urban/rural indicator¹ (two groups: urban and rural)

1.7 Where percentages do not sum to 100%, this may be due to computer rounding, the exclusion of 'don't know' categories or multiple answers. Throughout the report, an asterisk (*) denotes any value of less than half of one per cent. Where appropriate, we have commented on statistically significant subgroup differences.