Above BBC Scotland, below BBC UK:

In more than 1 000 words, BBC Scotland’s report on a rape case, above, offers no context of the kind student journalists must have or they fail, eg, ‘Is this offence more common in Scotland than elsewhere as drug deaths apparently are?‘

Would a bit of context have been useful for readers?

This kind of thing?

On 25 June 2025, I wrote:

The media in Scotland are headlining the increase in recorded cases of rape and attempted rape in Scotland. Though the increase may in part be a consequence of a greater confidence by victims to come forward and report these crimes, the figures remain disturbing. They have been disturbing for years before and represent a dark shadow on the reputation of a supposedly civilised nation.

However, if like drug deaths, these statistics could be presented to suggest Scotland is the ‘rape capital’ of the UK or Europe, I feel sure we’d see that endlessly repeated.

Let’s look at England & Wales where crime is recorded in a similar way and thus comparable.

The 2024/2025 figures are not out yet but for 2023/2024, there were 67 928 cases of rape or attempted rape in England and Wales.

All things being equal, per head, you might expect the figure for England and Wales to be around 11 times Scotland’s 2 500 to 2 900 range. Even if we take the larger figure, we get 31 900, less than half the actual 67 928. Rape and attempted rape is a staggering twice as common in England & Wales than in Scotland.

The level in England & Wales has been close to 70 000 cases since at least 2021, so consistently more than twice as high as in Scotland.

If drug deaths can be compared then why not rapes?

Source:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/283100/recorded-rape-offences-in-england-and-wales/#:~:text=After%20this%20year%2C%20rape%20offences%20increased%20substantially%2C%20reaching,68%2C949%20in%202022%2F23%2C%20and%20to%2067%2C928%20in%202023%2F24.June 25, 2025