Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2021-2022

Antisocial Offences

As noted above, Antisocial offences is a new group which was derived from splitting the previous Miscellaneous offences group into two groups: Antisocial offences and a revised Miscellaneous offences group with multiple new categories. To ensure no break to time series analysis, all data has been back-revised.

Antisocial offences accounted for just under a third (31%) of all offences recorded in Scotland in 2021-22. Between 2020-21 and 2021-22, the number of Antisocial offences recorded by the police decreased by 3%, from 57,456 to 55,975. There was a decrease of 56% since 2012-13.

The national rate of recorded Antisocial offences decreased from 105 per 10,000 population in 2020-21 to 102 per 10,000 population in 2021-22.

The Antisocial offences group includes the following categories:

• Antisocial Offences
  • Threatening and abusive behaviour
  • Racially aggravated conduct
  • Drunkenness & other disorderly conduct
  • Urinating etc.

In 2021-22 of all Antisocial offences:

• Threatening and abusive behaviour accounted for the clear majority, at 85%
• Drunkenness and other disorderly conduct accounted for 9%
• Racially aggravated conduct accounted for 3%
• Urinating etc. accounted for 3%

Threatening and abusive behaviour accounts for the clear majority of antisocial offences and is discussed in more detail below.

For further information on the other Antisocial offences categories please refer to the 'Supporting documents' Excel workbook for this bulletin. This includes data on the number of offences recorded in each category (Table 2) and rates per 10,000 population (Table 4). The workbook includes an ‘Introduction’ sheet, with information on how to navigate the tables, alongside a ‘Notes’ sheet, with relevant details to assist users when reading and interpreting results.

Threatening and abusive behaviour

The Threatening and abusive behaviour category includes offences of Threatening or abusive behaviour (which account for the vast majority of the category, at 90%), Breach of the peace offences (7%) and a new offence of Threatening and abusive behaviour of a retail worker (2%).

Over the ten year period from 2012-13 to 2021-22, the number of offences recorded in the Threatening and abusive behaviour category has decreased by 31%. This includes a 2% decrease in the most recent year, from 48,807 in 2020-21 to 47,756 in 2021-22.

Threatening and abusive behaviour of a retail worker is a subset of the Threatening and abusive behaviour category, which came into effect on the 24 August 2021. This was introduced by the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021. As such, the first statistics for 2021-22 only relate to a partial year. There were 1,130 offences recorded during this time. More information on this new legislation is provided in Annex 3.