| Title | Victimisation rates for personal and household crime. |
Associated Targets | 2 percentage point reduction in overall crime victimisation rates by 2011 |
Brief Description | Estimates the proportion of people in Scotland who have been the victim of one or more crimes in the past year, as measured by the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey ( SCJS). |
Strategic Objective(s) to Which Indicator Relates | This indicator informs progress in relation to: Safer and Stronger; Wealthier and Fairer |
More Detailed Definitions | |
Definitions of Keywords | Victimisation: where an individual or household has been the victim of a crime. Personal crime: Crimes where the person is victimised, covering personal theft, robbery, threats, sexual offences, attempted assault, minor assault (assault involving no or negligible injury) and serious assault (assault involving more serious injury). Household crime: Crimes where the household is victimised, covering housebreaking, theft of and from motor vehicles, other household theft, theft from a dwelling/theft from outside a dwelling, bicycle theft, and vandalism of property (including motor vehicles). Overall personal and household victimisation rates: for the purposes of this indicator, this refers to the proportion of people who have been a victim of one or more crimes counted by the survey during the previous year (the prevalence of victimisation). |
Evidence Source | The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) Scotland's crime survey, the SCJS, measures crime by interviewing a representative sample of Scotland's population about their experiences of crime in the past year. The survey includes crime reported and not reported to the police (and therefore will not be in the crime statistics recorded by the police ), providing a more accurate estimate of the extent of victimisation in Scotland of crimes covered by the survey. The crime survey in Scotland was conducted as part of the British Crime Survey in 1982 and 1988. From 1993 to 2003 a Scotland specific survey was conducted under the title 'Scottish Crime Survey' ( SCS) and then as the 'Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey'( SCVS) in 2004 and 2006. From 2008 the crime survey in Scotland will run continuously under the title 'Scottish Crime and Justice Survey' ( SCJS) with a larger sample size, providing data annually at Police Force level from 2008/09. Each survey report provides more detail about the recall periods: Scottish Crime Survey ( SCS) 1993: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/1999/01/66575548-b5a9-441f-834a-da44182da2af 1996: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/1998/12/5d2711f3-543b-4a34-9973-05bbba9e202e 2000: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2002/05/14407/1405 2003: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/12/20379/48077 Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey ( SCVS) 2004: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/01/16115536/0 2006: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/10/12094216/0 Scottish Crime and Justice Survey ( SCJS) 2008/09: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/12/14120636/0 2009/10: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/11/01090437/0 |
Baseline and Past Trends | Baseline data is available from the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey for 2008/09 which was published in October 2009 . Data will be available annually at Scotland level and at police force area level and community justice authority level. Estimates for earlier time periods for this measure are available from previous Scottish Crime Surveys but are not directly comparable to figures from 2008/09 forwards due to the change to continuous fieldwork sampling as opposed to sampling at fixed intervals. Data on past trends are drawn from a number of Scottish Crime Surveys. For 1992- 2003, data on victimisation was collected from respondents who were asked to think about their experiences in the previous calendar year.
1993 Scottish Crime Survey n= 5,030
1996 Scottish Crime Survey n= 5,045
2000 Scottish Crime Survey n= 5,059
2003 Scottish Crime Survey n= 5,041
For 2004-6, data on victimisation was collected from respondents who were asked to think about their experiences in the previous financial year. 2004 Scottish Crime and Victimisation n=3,034
2006 Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey n= 4,988 References to the key publications from each survey are given above. |
Methodology for Data Source | The SCJS uses a pre-selected sample which aims to be representative of households in Scotland and at Police Force Area level and at Community Justice Authority level. The target sample is 16,000 interviews per annum and interviews are conducted face-to-face using CAPI and CASI for sensitive topics. Estimates of the prevalence of victimisation will be produced using weighted analysis of survey data, along with 95% confidence intervals to give indications of the accuracy of the estimates. Full details are available in the SCJS Technical Report, available from the publications section of the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey website: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Research/by-topic/crime-and-justice/crime-and-justice-survey/publications. |
Data Ownership and Quality Assurance | The evidence source is currently designated as Official Statistics in the Scottish Government. The SCJS is an externally commissioned social research project. The ownership of the research materials and of the reports lies with Scottish Ministers. |
Publication of Data | Overall victimisation rates for personal and household crime as measured by the SCJS will be available annually from September 2009. Reports will be available from the publications section of the Scottish Government website: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/Recent. The SCJS dataset will be held on the UK Data Archive http://www.data-archive.ac.uk |
Methodology for Recent Change Arrow on Scotland | This evaluation is based on: any difference within +/- 1.0 percentage points of the previous survey suggests that the position is more likely to be maintaining than showing any change. A decrease of 1.0 percentage points or more suggests the position is improving; whereas an increase of 1.0 percentage points or more suggests the position is worsening. |
Future issues or reviews | The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey uses a rolling recall period, asking interviewees about their experiences in the 12 months immediately before the survey interview. This differs from previous crime surveys, which used fixed recall periods (either calendar or financial years). As a result, SCJS victimisation data may not be directly comparable with data collected in previous surveys. Work is being undertaken on developing a methodology to allow comparison of SCJS estimates of victimisation with existing survey data. |