Crime Audit

Crime Audit: National overview report 12 August 2010 To monitor and improve the police service in Scotland Crime Audit: National overview report 1 Introduction In 2008-09 there were no fewer than 937,724 crimes and offences in Scotland. We know this because police forces have a responsibility not just to investigate incidents that come to their attention, but to record them for official purposes. We also know from the 1Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) 2009 that members of the public tend to under-report crimes to the police. Their reasons for not reporting are typically that they feel either that the incident was too trivial, that the police could not have done anything about it or that the police would not have been interested. The survey evidence also suggests that the numbers of people reporting incidents to their local police force differs according to where they live. It is very important that people report criminal incidents to the police and that the police subsequently record these accurately. Not only does it help to ensure that individual incidents are properly dealt with, it assists in establishing a wider picture of the scale and nature of crime and the resources needed to tackle it. In recognition of this, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) introduced the Scottish Crime 2Recording Standard (SCRS) in 2004 to improve consistency in crime recording across Scotland. It was ...