Scottish Government

Recorded crime

Criminal incidents in Scotland are classified as either crimes or offences: the term 'crime' is used for more serious criminal acts, while 'offences' describes minor incidents and breaches of road traffic legislation. The distinction is for working purposes only, and the seriousness of the act is generally related to the maximum sentence that can be imposed. The Framework does not reproduce every crime and offence, but instead aggregates them into standard groupings.

We understand that for many members of the public, recorded crime is the definitive measure of police effectiveness. However, we would caution against placing too much reliance on such indicators, as recorded crime levels are greatly influenced by other factors, including:

• prevailing social and economic factors;
• advances in technology - e.g. mobile phones, internet;
• the fact that not all increases in crime figures are negative - e.g. higher numbers of drug seizures made by the police, victims being more confident in reporting sensitive crime to the police; and
• the fact that not all crime gets reported to the police - e.g. the Scottish Crime & Justice Survey ²¹ found that the two most common reasons given by people for not going to the police were that they the victims thought the matter too trivial or felt that the police could not have done anything in any case.

Detected crime

A crime is regarded as 'detected' where sufficient evidence exists under Scots law to justify that criminal proceedings be considered by the procurator fiscal. Where a report is not submitted to the procurator fiscal, an incident can still be considered detected if:

1. the police have used an alternative to prosecution when dealing with relevant minor offences such as a fixed penalty notice ( FPN) for anti-social behaviour or a minor traffic violation, have issued a formal adult warning, etc; or,

2. reporting is inappropriate due to the accused being under the age of criminal liability (in Scotland, no child under the age of eight years can be guilty of an offence), the death of the accused, or similar circumstances.

Consequently, not every detection means that someone has been arrested. In addition, forces are required to record detections at the time at which they occur. For example, if an assault takes place in May 2007 it will be recorded as occurring that month. If it is then solved in December 2008, then the detection is recorded for December rather than May. This is why forces can sometimes show detection rates of over 100%.

Scottish Crime Recording Standard ( SCRS)

Adopted by forces in April 2004, the Scottish Crime Recording Standard ( SCRS) adopts a more ethical and public-focused stance by stipulating that where there is supporting evidence that on the 'balance of probability' a crime has occurred, it will be recorded as such and in an auditable form. Since the introduction of the SCRS, the accuracy of crime recording has improved considerably.