Professor John Robertson OBA

From Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2024-25, published today, the above graph, and:

There was little change in crimes recorded by the police in Scotland, decreasing by <1%, from 299,790 to 299,111. The recording of crime remains below the position immediately prior to the pandemic (2019-20) and down 51% from its peak in 1991.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2024-25/

I know not all crime is recorded by police but research by Edinburgh University asking around 5 000 people if they have experienced crime shows a similar 46% fall from 2007, as the SNP came to power. https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-crime-and-justice-survey-2023-24-main-findings/pages/overview-of-crime-in-scotland/ page 79

Also, to triangulate these findings, repeated opinion polls show Scots are far less likely, half the level, to report crime as one of the issues that most concern them, than those in England or Wales.

Researchers have shown that the level of crime correlates with a complex array of factors including poverty, unemployment, housing, education and so on but, in particular with inequality. https://equalitytrust.org.uk/evidence-base/the-spirit-level-at-15/

The above line graph shows a fall in overall crime under Labour, from a peak of over 600 000 in 1991 (under the Conservatives) to around 400 000 (down 33%) under but then sticking there and even climbing a bit in the years before 2007. Crime seemed to have a found a level based on influencing factors such as, specifically, Labour’s reduction of child poverty and, more widely, upon the reduced level of inequality they had managed to produce in their early years.

In a similar way, the SNP from 2007 managed an even greater (40%) reduction in crime before, as they hit the limits of their fiscal powers to further reduce inequality, it stuck again (The Child Payment may well change that). Full independence will enable a further push against inequality with a resultant further decline in crime.