EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. During its first term in office, the Scottish Executive published The National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland, the ultimate aims of which are to prevent domestic abuse, identify the ways in which services should develop, and raise awareness of the nature of domestic abuse (Scottish Executive 2002).
2. The Executive has specified that effective data collection will be key to informing the work of the National Strategy. Since 1996 a module of self-completion questions on domestic abuse have been included in the Scottish Crime Survey. The questions cover a range of issues including:
- Experience of domestic abuse
- Relationship of victims to perpetrators
- Frequency of abuse
- Nature of any injuries sustained by victims
- Whether or not victims sought medical attention for their injuries
- Whether or not the incident was reported to the police
- Whether or not the incident was witnessed by children.
3. This summary presents findings from both the 2003 and 2004 modules. The data from the two years have been aggregated to allow for more robust analysis at the sub group level.
The key findings are as follows:
- Four percent of respondents (6 % of women and 1 % of men) across the two surveys said their partner or ex-partner had threatened them in the previous year, and the same proportion (5 % of women and 2 % of men) said their partner or ex-partner had used force towards them.
- Of those who had experienced threats or force in the last year and who specified their relationship to the perpetrator, just over half reported that the perpetrator was their current spouse/partner (39%) or boyfriend/girlfriend (17%) while 44% said the perpetrator was an ex-spouse/partner (23%) or ex-boyfriend/girlfriend (21%).
- Threats appear to take place with greater regularity than force - 29% of those who had experienced threats said that this happened at least once a week, compared with 16% of those who had experienced force.
- Of those who had experienced force, 89% had been pushed, shoved or grabbed, while 53% had had something thrown at them, 51% reported damage to their property, 34% had been threatened with something, 24% had been hit with something and 17% had been choked, strangled or suffocated.
- Fifty-eight per cent of those who had experienced force had been injured on at least one occasion as a consequence and 9% had been injured on each occasion.
- Over three in five victims said that the person who used force against them had been drinking alcohol and 22% said the perpetrator had been taking drugs.
- Asked whether any children had seen or heard what happened on any occasion, 28% of those to whom this was applicable answered yes, and a further 3% said they were unsure.
- Of those respondents who said they had experienced domestic abuse in the previous year, only around a third (34%) said that the police had ever come to know about any incident where force was used against them.