By Professor John Robertson OBA
Many of us, understandably are skeptical about the picture of falling crime painted by statistics based on police recording. Correctly, we point to the fact that much crime is known to be unreported and unrecorded.
However, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS), carried out by independent University-based researchers interviews around 5 000 Scots asking them to speak of ‘their experiences of, and attitudes to, a range of issues related to crime, policing and the justice system, including crime not reported to the police.‘
This is gold standard research and can be trusted to reveal the world as experienced by the wider population.
The survey update published today reveals:
Crime has fallen by 53% since 2008-09. Results from the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) show that around one in ten adults were victims of crime in 2021-22 (10.0%), down from 11.9% in 2019-20. This compares to one in five in 2008-09 (20.4%).
The SCJS showed the volume of violent crime fell by nearly three-fifths (58%) between 2008-09 and 2021-22.
Looking at more recent Police Scotland recording:
Recorded sexual crimes decreased in the most recent year. Sexual crimes decreased by 3%, from 14,834 in the year ending June 2023 to 14,417 in the year ending June 2024.
The clear up rate for all recorded crimes was 54.1% in 2023-24, up from 53.3% in 2022-23. Crimes against society (91.4%), non-sexual crimes of violence (68%) and sexual crimes (57.2%) continued to have higher clear up rates in 2023-24 than crimes of dishonesty (33.1%) and damage and reckless behaviour (29.6%).
There were 61,934 incidents of domestic abuse recorded by the police in 2022-23, a decrease of 4% on 2021-22. In 2022-23, 39% of all incidents recorded by the police included the recording of at least one crime or offence.
Between 2020-21 and 2021-22, the number of crimes and offences in which a firearm was alleged to have been involved decreased by 23% (from 353 to 273 offences). The 2021-22 figure is the lowest recorded level since comparable records began in 1980.
How does all this compare with other parts of the UK?
In 2022/23, however, Scotland’s crime rate was the lowest in the UK, with the crime rate in England and Wales rising noticeably during the same period. Scotland’s homicide rate has also fallen, from being the highest in the UK in 2002/03, to the lowest as of 2022/23.
Sources:
Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host of the OBA (Oliver Brown Award) at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/shop/
The Oliver Brown Award for advancing the cause of Scotland’s self respect, previously awarded to Dr Philippa Whitford, Alex Salmond and Sean Connery: https://scotsindependent.scot/?page_id=116
About Oliver Brown, the first Scottish National Party candidate to save his deposit in a Parliamentary election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Brown_(Scottish_activis
Talking-up Scotland 
If , the facts as stated above are true in relation to crime in Scotland and so then this is the (more positive) case in Scotland , then what argument would or could there possibly be for some Scots (and also others who live here) to “Change” their vote in electing 37 Labour MP’s in the recent GE. (and also to keep 5 Tory MP’s and increase the amount of Lib Dems MP’s also in Scotland in that same GE).
Is it perfection some in Scotland seek via our government while allowing for extenuating circumstances to impact the performance of other political parties governing elsewhere in the UK.
I am beginning to think that not only is Scotland not “allowed” a justified second independence referendum but also our government , unlike other governments within the UK, must have a 100% flawless performance as a government and so are not “allowed” to at times make a mistake or be seen to be less than perfect.
Is that a non world standard rating that only applies to Scotland then?
Then of course will any better performance in Scotland (compared to elsewhere within the UK) be promoted by the media as much as they , as a media, choose to (over) promote those things they assures us are decidedly #SNPBAD and where they expect us to surmise that no other government within the UK has had any similar #BAD associated with their public services or performances .
Past being sick of it as now predictable behaviour and attitude we are subjected to via a non Scottish media .
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‘Is it perfection some in Scotland seek via our government while allowing for extenuating circumstances to impact the performance of other political parties governing elsewhere in the UK.’ (sic) Indeed and with a huge dose of hypocrisy added for good measure.
On 24 October 2024 the BBC News website had this headline: ‘Hospital waiting list tops 800,000 for first time’. The article is about NHS Wales. It reports:
‘Hospital waiting times have hit record levels in Wales again, with the list passing the 800,000 mark for the first time. The total number of patient pathways, as they are referred to, rose by more than 3,500 in August to 800,163. The actual number of patients waiting, as some are on more than one list, hit 619,200 – another record. The increase for the seventh month in a row ….’
And then we learn: ‘Those waiting the longest continues to rise – more than 169,609 of more than a year and 24,193 of more than two years. That means more than 23% of waits are more than a year in Wales …’
The BBC also notes: ‘Overall, waiting times worsened across most key measures – ambulance response times, A&E waits and those waiting more than a year for a first outpatient appointment. Only the waiting time measure to start cancer treatment showed a slight improvement, although it is still way off target.’
Contrast the above with this. At PMQs in the House of Commons on October 30 we have this recorded in Hansard:
Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Labour): ‘Last month the Scottish Government Health Minister was forced to apologise for waiting times in my area of Fife, where some patients wait more than two years for treatment. My constituents deserve so much better than this. Does the Prime Minister agree that the Scottish National party must take responsibility for 17 years of failure and that, if today’s Budget delivers a bigger block grant to Scotland, the SNP must sort out the mess it has made of Scotland’s precious NHS?’ (My emphasis)
‘The Prime Minister: ‘This is the second time this has come up this afternoon in Prime Minister’s questions, and I hope that SNP Members are listening good and hard. I am sorry to hear that my hon. Friend’s constituents have been waiting so many years for the medical treatment that they need. We are committed to the NHS, and the Chancellor will have a lot more to say about that in just a moment.’
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The PM “I hope that SNP Members are listening good and hard“
Really ?
So when are Labour politicians going to listen to us as voters in Scotland ?
Also when are Labour politicians going to listen to the Welsh people who have to endure such long waiting times in their NHS ?
In fact do the Labour party ever even listen to themselves (talking) as in talking down others while they themselves are obviously far from perfect as a party and also as both the Welsh & UK governments.
‘I am an opposition party, say Labour, therefore I shall oppose those in opposition to my party’.
Hardly “Breaking news” or worthy of a headline in the BBC website article as in ‘Labour declare the SNP are #BAD because of X Y Z’ . (fill in the blanks).
(Rinse & repeat as a headline and article in the BBC website).
Indeed even the thickest of the thick among the general public could surely see why they, Labour, say what they say about the SNP in terms that are negative , as in they, the Labour party, criticise the SNP as a party and also as the current Scottish government because Labour want to win more votes and more seats than the SNP in Scotland in all elections.
So who is supposed to be monitoring and judging the Labour party’s performance as both the Welsh government and now the UK government ?
Us the public ?
Oh but wait I hear that we , the public, are all supposed to give them, the Labour party, “time” to settle in as the new UK government, while disregarding all of that bumf that they said prior to the GE in respect to them being the party for “Change” and the party for a “Fresh start” and that if they won the GE they would be the party who would “Hit the ground running on day one”.
Now Labour have been elected as the new UK government , well the only “change” that has happened is that many voters are now ‘changing’ their minds and regretting voting for Labour in the recent GE .
As we have not so much seen a “Fresh start” from them , more like a ‘stale same old same old’ that we had with the previous lot, the Tories, and that they , Labour, have fallen at the first hurdle in their supposed attempt to try to ” hit the ground running on the first day and it seems also on subsequent days too “.
Mind you Keir Starmer has perfected the art of projection and also deflection away from himself and from his party’s many failures too , where he has failed to keep all of his former pledges and promises that he made, when he was formerly a candidate for the Labour leadership. (and where and what exactly is this much heralded “Change” that we, the public, were all supposed to experience and benefit from via a new Labour UK government).
(Keir Starmer got to be Labour leader by saying what he thought people wanted to hear, then when he won the Labour leadership , he then ditched all that he had pledged. That was a ‘RED’ flag for sure as in a sure sign -warning – of things to come from him- when he then became the UK PM).
Now as the PM of the new UK government, he and his colleagues , are also perfecting and demonstrating how , as a political party, to lose people’s trust and faith in politicians and politics.
(For Scotland that should be applicable only to all pro UK politicians and pro UK politics who managed to erode all trust and faith for many of us in Scotland in respect to their dysfunctional UK system of politics ).
The current ‘Blame game’ is not one that Labour can utilise forever as an excuse , as at some point more voters will tire of this and also begin to doubt Labour and also tire of and doubt Keir Starmer as the UK PM. (in fact some are already tiring of their excuses and also beginning to doubt them).
It is obvious that trust and doubt will indeed spread among voters on Labour’s obvious lack of ability to govern the UK well , which we on here and others like us, well we deduced that was relevant as a fact in regards to Labour a long long time ago.
If Labour do, God Forbid, achieve a political ‘hat trick’ and win the Scottish election in 2026 then the UK , bar NI, would be a one party state as Britain and that would not be a positive outcome for Scotland or indeed for other nations within the UK either.
Labour would then have a monopoly, politically, within their Britain.
However I hope sanity in Scotland will be restored before 2026 and that scenario will not happen, as in Labour winning in Scotland in 2026 , as currently with Labour being in charge of Wales I often think that “There bit for the grace of God goes Scotland”.
So let Labour and Keir Starmer continue to chastise the SNP because they, Labour, are now in the spotlight as the UK government so let’s see if they are any better as a UK government (s far that is a NO) than they have been as a very much imperfect and failing Welsh Labour government.
We will also see how long the UK and Welsh public will tolerate and accept Labour criticising others, like the SNP, while they themselves ‘ain’t all that’ as either the UK or the Welsh government.
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*There bit for the grace of God goes Scotland
Should be “but”.
Mind you with a strong Scottish accent it could be pronounced ‘bit’.
Ha Ha
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