By Professor John Robertson OBA
Ipsos Scotland today posted the poll results above showing that like other parts of the UK, Scotland’s voters seem far more concerned about the economy, health and immigration than any other issues. The SNP will do well to keep this in mind.
I should quickly point out that Ipsos Mori, unlike most other pollsters, some owned by Tory grandees or headed up by Labour lords, can be trusted. Based in Paris, when it comes to Scottish independence, they ‘do not have a horse in the race.’
Not being discussed much is the 11% concerned about crime across the UK but only 7% in Scotland. I’ve noticed this before in previous polls. On its own, it may not mean anything but when triangulated (I love that tidy completion) with police recording of crime and reliable academic surveys, you have the gold standard revealing that it’s as real as real can be.
The above is one side of the triangulation suggestion that Scots are significantly less concerned with crime and that they are right to do so. Here’s the second, police 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.
Here’s the third, what thousands of folk, scientifically sampled by University of Edinburgh researchers who could teach research methods and not by a bunch of journalist, doctors, nurses or GMB leaders who could not pass it.
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 actually experienced by the wider population and as how the data suggests it is.
The survey update 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.
Fact!
Sources:
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
This is a hat-trick! No Yoon eh-buts allowed.
LikeLiked by 3 people