Recorded Crime in Scotland: February 2022

Recorded Crime in Scotland:February 2022

This Official Statistics bulletin presents information on the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police in Scotland during February 2022. It also includes a comparison with the equivalent month of the previous two years.

These Official Statistics were introduced to inform users about the volume and type of crimes and offences recorded in Scotland during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Whilst the restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the virus will have had an impact on the number of recorded crimes and offences, some caution is advised before necessarily attributing all of the changes to this situation. For example, longer term trends in some types of offending, which existed prior to the pandemic, may remain a factor.

The annual Recorded Crime in Scotland bulletin remains the primary source of information on crimes and offences recorded by the police, and has been designated as National Statistics by the Office for Statistics Regulation.

We earlier ran a consultation of users on the production and dissemination of Scotland's recorded crime statistics. A report on the responses received as part of the consultation, along with an announcement of changes to the production of these statistics, was published on 24 March 2022.

The changes include the discontinuation of these Monthly Official Statistics after the March 2022 edition (to be published in April). They will then be replaced with a quarterly release of National Statistics, which will present the latest rolling 12-month period. As part of the transition to a quarterly release schedule, and to ensure that we are publishing data in as timely a manner as possible - we will bring forward the release of the annual National Statistics publication for 2021-22 from September to June.

Users can access further information on these changes and the wider package of amendments to the production of the recorded crime statistics, in the report referenced above.