Scottish crime recording standard: crime recording and counting rules

Statement of Purpose

Crime is recorded by the police and others to assist both central and local Government to establish whether their policies are effective in driving down crime, and to gain understanding of the relative performance of policing and criminal justice providers within Scotland.

The public in making informed decisions about the risk of crime to themselves as individuals and to allow judgements on how effective Government and police have been in tackling crime and in providing police and their partners with data which informs the targeted use of resources and allows the relative effectiveness of different methodologies to be established.

As can be seen, this is a tripartite relationship where no individual stakeholder need is given greater credence than another. However, it is unlikely for a variety of reasons that Recorded Crime Statistics will ever give a full picture of crime. It is, therefore, important to emphasise that Government, and the police generally consider Crime Statistics in conjunction with Crime Survey data and other sources, in order to achieve the aims stated above.