Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2013-14

Annex 8: Users of the Statistics

4.42 Recorded Crime in Scotland bulletin series are published annually and report on crimes and offences recorded and cleared up by the Police in Scotland. These statistics are used by a large number of internal and external stakeholders for a variety of purposes.

4.43 The statistics form part of the evidence base for the Building Safer Communities (BSC) programme. The programme was established in 2009 to accelerate crime reduction in Scotland. The purpose, as agreed by the BSC programme board, is to build the evidence base, provide strategic challenge, reduce violence and increase community safety and resilience. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/justicestrategy/programmes/building-safer-communities

Statistics on Violent crime and Handling offensive weapons are a key part of the evidence base which informs policies on reducing violence and knife crime. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/policies/reducing-crime/reducing-violence

4.44 As part of tackling violence, the No Knives Better Lives youth engagement programme was launched in 2009 in 10 areas across Scotland. In 2014 this was rolled out across all local authorities. The programme aims to provide education and support to young people to prevent and deter knife carrying and use. This preventative approach is balanced by tough measures for those who commit knife crime.

4.45 Sexual crimes are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 which came into force on 1 December 2010. The Act was passed following widespread media and academic criticism of the previous law in Scotland surrounding rape and other sexual crimes, particularly the gender specific nature of the common law offence of rape. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/10/sexualoffencesactguidance

The Act replaced a number of common law crimes including Rape, Clandestine injury to women and Sodomy with new statutory sexual crimes. The Act provides a statutory description of consent, which is defined as free agreement and provides a non-exhaustive list of factual circumstances during which consent will be deemed to be absent.

The Act created a number of new 'protective' offences, which criminalise sexual activity with children and mentally disordered persons. There are separate offences concerning young children (under 13 years) and older children (13-15 years). http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/10/sexualoffencesactguidance

4.46 Crimes on Sexual crimes are also used to inform Equally Safe, Scotland's strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Equality/violence-women/strategydocuments

Equally Safe sets out Scotland's strategy to take action on all forms of violence against women and girls. While the overarching aim is to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls, it identifies key priority areas. While the strategy sets out some early commitments, it explains how a phased approach will help ensure that the longer-term change is sustained.

4.47 Statistics on Wildlife crime also feeds into the Wildlife Crime in Scotland Annual Report. This report details wildlife offences in Scotland, including information on incidences and prosecutions during the year, and on research, advice and other work relevant to wildlife crime. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2014/10/2293

4.48 Crime statistics are also used by a variety of external stakeholders. A flavour of such uses are:

• Utility companies who wish to assess the safety of an area before sending employees out into the public
• Insurance companies assessing the risk of crime in different areas
• Local authority planning
• Academic research
• Students and school pupils writing dissertations and carrying out projects

4.49 Our user consultations in 2009 and 2014 found that our statistics were used for the following purposes -

1. Monitoring trends

2. Research and development

3. Local authority reporting

4. General awareness of issues and trends

5. Provide data on single outcome agreements or national indicators

6. Policy development

7. Briefing

4.50 Official statistics are a tool used in decision making both inside and outside government, and for this tool to be effective it must be designed to meet the needs of users. Comments on the uses you have made of these statistics and any suggestions for their improvement are always welcomed and should be sent to justiceanalysts@scotland.gsi.gov.uk.

4.51 Further information on users and uses of the statistics is available in the User Guide to Recorded Crime Statistics in Scotland, available via the following link: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/PubRecordedCrime/UserGuide