I know, I’ve already sorted the Herald‘s front page in an earlier report this morning but this email alert version above takes their dishonesty to a new level with the suggestion that ‘new data‘ from schools, on possession, exposes a rise in actual youth violence.

It’s utterly untrue, a disgraceful lie aimed at clickbait at the expense of our mental health.

So, to repeat:

1. Recorded crime incidents in schools where a blade article or ‘point’ was ‘concerned’ fell from 149 to 127 last year.
2. That’s 0.04% of the secondary school population.
3. The above term does not in any way simply equate to ‘knife.’
4. The only trend in these four years is slightly down with minor yearly variations.
5. Not one of the violent incidents in the report took place in a school but rather took place on a beach and in the street in the context of gang-related conflict.

That claim of a rise in actual youth violence – What is the long-term youth violence trend in Scotland?

Youth violence in Scotland involving individuals under 18 as victims, perpetrators, or both. Data come from sources like the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey a victimization survey¹, Recorded Crime in Scotland (police data)², and cohort studies such as the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime (ESYTC)³ and Growing Up in Scotland (GUS)⁴. Long-term trends (roughly 2000–2025) show a marked overall decline, driven by public health interventions like the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit (SVRU, established 2005).

Sources:

1. https://www.svru.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/SVRU001_State-of-Nation-Report_Digital.pdf
2. https://www.gov.scot/publications/violence-prevention-framework-scotland-annual-progress-report-2024-2025/
3. https://www.law.ed.ac.uk/research/impact-and-engagement/edinburgh-study-of-youth-transitions-and-crime
4. https://www.svru.co.uk/2023/03/scotlands-young-people-demonstrate-success-in-violence-reduction/

What about murder by minors – that form of youth violence so cherished for income generation by the gutter press?

The trend is clearly and definitively the other way in Scotland.

Above, the official data reveal a steady, statistically significant, falling trend in the number of homicides by minors, over four 5 years sets (more reliable than 1 year changes), plummeting from 24 under Labour to 6 under the SNP, in recent years.

While the elderly are murdering more and the middle-aged are still murdering at the same rate, the very folk who are murdering far less than in the past are ‘the youth!’ Look at the Under 16s in the above table and tell me what you think of the Herald’s rise in youth violence.

Source: https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2024/10/homicide-scotland-2023-24/documents/homicide-in-scotland-2023-24-data-tables/homicide-in-scotland-2023-24-data-tables/govscot%3Adocument/Homicide%2Bin%2BScotland%2B2023-24%2BTables.xlsx