Recorded Crime in Scotland 2012-13

2. Main points

• There has been a decrease in the number of crimes recorded in four of the five crime groups, with Non-sexual crimes of violence, Crimes of dishonesty, Fire-raising, vandalism etc. and Other crimes decreasing between 2011-12 and 2012-13. There has been an increase in the number of Sexual Offences between 2011-12 and 2012-13 (Table 1).

• The number of Non-sexual crimes of violence recorded by the police decreased by 21% between 2011-12 and 2012-13, to a total of 7,530 (Table 1).

• The number of Sexual offences increased by 5% from 7,361 in 2011-12 to 7,693 in 2012-13 (Table 1). The implementation of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 on 1 December 2010, resulted in a redistribution of Group 2 crimes among the subcategories. Comparisons over time should therefore be treated with caution.

• The number of Crimes of dishonesty decreased by 12% to stand at 135,899 crimes in 2012-13 (Table 1).

• Recorded crimes of Fire-raising, vandalism etc. decreased by 21% to total 59,479 in 2012-13 (Table 1).

• The number of Other crimes decreased by 8% between 2011-12 and 2012-13 to total 62,452. (Table 1).

• In 2012-13, the police recorded 543,768 offences, an increase of less than 1% from the number of offences recorded in 2011-12. There was a 3% decrease in the number of Miscellaneous offences, largely due to a substantial decrease in the number of recorded common assaults. This decrease was offset by a 3% increase in the number of motor vehicle offences. (Table 2).

• The clear up rate for all recorded crimes in 2012-13 was 51%, 2 percentage points higher than in each of the preceding years from 2008-09 to 2011-12, where the clear up rate remained constant at 49% (Table 3).

• Clear up rates for all crime groups increased in 2012-13 with the exception of Other crimes where the clear up remained at 98%. The clear up rate for Non-sexual crimes of violence increased by 4 percentage points from 75% in
  2011-12 to 79% in 2012-13. The clear up rate for Fire-raising, vandalism etc. (27%) increased by 2 percentage points and the clear up rates for Sexual offences (68%) and Crimes of dishonesty (38%) each increased by 1 percentage point (Table 3).

• All eight police forces showed a decrease in the number of crimes recorded in 2012-13 compared to 2011-12. The scale of the decrease ranged from 6% for Tayside, to 16% for Northern (Table 5).

• Although there was a 5% increase in the total number of Sexual offences recorded in Scotland in 2012-13, there were substantial differences between police forces. Increases ranged from 7% for Tayside to 33% for Northern. Decreases ranged from 2% in Lothian and Borders, to 20% in Central. The figures for Fife remained broadly the same in 2012-13 as in 2011-12 (Table 5).