Recorded Crimes and Offences Involving Firearms, Scotland, 2020-21 and 2021-22

Annex 1: Statement on Data Quality

The statistics presented in this bulletin are derived from data returns submitted by each police division to Police Scotland. Unlike other Justice Analytical Services (JAS) bulletins which have seen changes to the way data is collected arising from the merger of Scotland’s police forces, this publication retains a familiar data process. The main difference is that Police Scotland, and not JAS, collect data returns from the divisions in respect of offences involving a firearm. A reporting officer based within each division of Police Scotland runs a series of queries on their individual Crime Management System to identify crime reports which include firearms. These records are then manually inputted into the data return.

Not all such crimes and offences are reported to the police. The extent of under-reporting is likely to vary considerably according to the seriousness of the crime or offence. For example, armed robberies are much more likely to be reported to the police than malicious damage caused by the firing of an air weapon. Moreover, the propensity of the public to report crimes and offences to the police is influenced by a number of factors and may therefore change over time; thus trends in the number of crimes and offences recorded may differ from trends in the number of crimes and offences actually committed. For further information, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey for 2021-22 includes analysis on why some crimes are not reported to the police.

This bulletin reports on offences involving firearms that are both reported to the police and subsequently recorded as a crime.

One area that could affect the accuracy of the statistics reported in this bulletin is the potential for mistakes in the recording of crime at an operational-level, which could create errors in the Crime Management System (CMS). The CMS should contain a record of all crime reports in Scotland and is audited by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS). On 10 March 2021, HMICS published their Crime Audit 2020. The Audit found no systemic data quality issues around the recording of crimes and offences. The report found that “Police Scotland’s compliance with the Scottish Crime Recording Standard and Counting Rules is generally good at over 90%,” with 91.4% of incidents closed correctly and 90.8% of crime counted and classified correctly.

Another area that could affect accuracy of the statistics is the risk that an offence involving a firearm is recorded by the police, but is not identified through the data collection process undertaken for this bulletin. Further information on the data collection process and our review of its effectiveness is provided below.