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Professor John Robertson OBA

As the inquiry resumes into the deeply tragic Southport knife murders, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the progress that has been made in Scotland these last nearly two decades from a position when Scotland was a darker more violent place.

From Knife crime statistics: FOI release published in October 2024 asking:

The number of knife crime offences [homicides], broken down by offence, age of suspect, and ethnic appearance of suspect, for each year for the last ten years (broken down by year), up to the most recent data.

The recent trends are clear:

1. a four year falling trend from 40 cases in 2019/2020 to 37, 26 and 25 in following years;
2. a three year falling trend among 16-24 year-olds, from 13 in 2020/2021 to 8 and 6 in the following years;
3. zero cases among minors for the last three years after 1 case in each of the previous two;
4. a reliable, statistically significant fall in the 5 year-average, from 35.8 five to ten years ago to 33.4 in the last five years.

Source: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202400427434/May 31, 2025johnrobertson834Edit