The press is full of warnings of loss of life if police officer staffing is cut, from a ‘top officer’ who is, in fact, a trade union leader not a senior officer nor a Sherlock-like detective.
With two days to go until a by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West this is misconceived political campaigning on behalf of a Rightist Labour Party which would not hesitate to slash their staffing further and ignore their pay demands.
None of the reports have this important evidence:
As the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election looms, little media coverage, perhaps not surprising as you will see below, has looked at the SNP’s record in government with regard to crime and policing.
The contrasts in the trends in Scotland, England and Wales are stark.
When Harold Wilson’s Labour came to power in 1964, there were around 160 000 crimes recorded across Scotland. By the last year of the Labour/Lib Dem alliance at Holyrood, in 2006, that figure had almost tripled to more than 400 000!
After 16 years of SNP rule that figure had fallen steadily year-on-year to less than 300 000 in 2023.
At the same time, in England and in Wales, with the Conservatives in control in England and Labour running devolved government in Wales, crime surged. By 2023, there 94 crimes for every 1 000 people in England and Wales but only 53 in Scotland. Overall crime in England and Wales is now almost twice as high as in Scotland. That is a staggering difference between otherwise very similar countries.
Violent crime, an understandable and particular concern for the electorate in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, has also fallen dramatically in Scotland from more than 92 000 under Labour in 2003 to 62 000 under the SNP in 2021. This is a massive fall of almost one-third!
In England and Wales, in sharp contrast, violent crime has soared from 665 000 when the Conservatives came to power in 2010 and after decades of Labour power across Wales, to more than 2 million in 2023, almost tripling!
South Lanarkshire has currently a crime rate somewhere in the middle of the Scottish range, 17th out of 34 regions, at 48 crimes for every 1 000 people, below the Scottish average of 53 and well below that of Dundee at 81, Glasgow City at 77 or North Lanarkshire at 55. In 2006, there were more than 20 000 crimes in South Lanarkshire. By 2023, that had fallen to less than 16 000, a 20% fall.
In terms of violent crimes, South Lanarkshire had 779 recorded cases in the last year of the Labour government in 2006 but by 2021, after 14 years of SNP government, there were only 112, a massive reduction.
Despite these enormous reductions in crime, Police staffing across Scotland has only fallen very slightly, as of March 2022, was 27% higher than in 1985 at that time of far higher crime than today and, in 2023, has 400 more officers than when the SNP came to power in 2007.
England and Wales have only 228 police officers for every 100 000 people while in Scotland the figure is 316, 34% more.
Finally, in March 2023, Lanarkshire Division of Police Scotland had 4 436 police officers, up from 4 311 in March 2017 when police Scotland was formed.
Sources:
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2006/09/recorded-crime-scotland-2005-06/documents/0038291-pdf/0038291-pdf/govscot%3Adocument/0038291.pdf
https://www.statista.com/statistics/370370/crime-figures-in-scotland/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1030625/crime-rate-uk/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/288256/violent-crimes-in-england-and-wales/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/370395/scotland-crime-rate-local-authorities/
https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2005-06/pages/13/
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.scotland.police.uk/spa-media/tgwakhio/council-quarterly-bulletin-quarter-1-official.pdf
https://www.statista.com/statistics/327271/crimes-in-scotland-by-local-authority/
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00634/SN00634.pdf
https://www.gov.scot/publications/police-officer-quarterly-strength-statistics-30-june-2023/
https://www.scotland.police.uk/about-us/how-we-do-it/police-scotland-officer-numbers/
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I’ve found you can’t win with unionists. When I share these statistics they quickly turn on them and say ‘Police Scotland is in the SNP’s pockets’, and ‘it’s obvious the figures are faked because you can’t trust the SNP’. There is such a barrage of anti independence and anti SG (especially ruthless towards the Greens) that I feel a break from social media is looming. This bleeding by election and the Labour party’s constant warbling from their ‘guest’ MPs is doing my head in.
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Or …… people have lost any faith in the police so they don’t bother to report things any more.
This is a variation of the ‘tip of the iceberg’ fallacy which is trotted out.
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‘people have lost any faith in the police so they don’t bother to report things any more’ but only in Scotland of course
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” Police Scotland is in the S.N.Ps pockets”. I believe you could make a case for the opposite to be true, considering the failed prosecution of Alex Salmond and the ongoing farrago over the finances of the S.N.P.
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I see the National has taken this up too. An article by Gregor Young quoting “the head of the organisation representing the rank and file police in Scotland” has said people could die due to lack of officer numbers. Goes on – Scottish Police Federation general secretary David Kennedy told 1919 magazine – which the organisation funds – there could be a repeat of the M9 incident where two people died in their crashed car, despite police being called.
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The M9 ”incident” was down to the failure of the officer receiving the report properly acting on it , the inquiry has heard — having ”more” officers would not have changed this sad scenario .
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