6 in 10 crimes unreported as SNP boasts of fall in offences
MORE than 60 per cent of crime is not reported to police despite SNP boasts that recorded offending is at a record low.
Justice Secretary Michael Matheson this week trumpeted a 3 per cent fall in recorded crime – but his claim did not include almost 300,000 offences.
Yesterday, the Scottish Government admitted the majority of crime is not even reported to police – including 44 per cent of violent offences.
Previous official figures have shown 40 per cent of Scots lacked confidence in the ability of police to carry out their core duty of ‘catching criminals’.
The scale of unreported crime led to further concern last night that the SNP had based its claim about a fall in offending on skewed figures.
Scottish Tory justice spokesman Liam Kerr said the fall in the proportion of crimes being solved to just 50 per cent in 2016-17 [from nearly 52 per cent the previous year] would also hit public confidence.
He added: ‘On the face of it, Police Scotland can’t be held responsible for crime that is never reported. However, the SNP Government has to realise that when clear-up rates are down at 50 per cent, it’s no wonder some victims feel there’s no point getting in touch.
‘It should be alarming for ministers that there is this level of unreported crime – and it exposes as nonsense the SNP’s constant boasts that crime levels are lower than ever.’
The Scottish Government publication on recorded crime published on Tuesday highlighted the earlier Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) – carried out by the Scottish Government – which looks at people’s experience of crime. It states the SCJS ‘captures crimes that do not come to the attention of the police, and therefore are not included in recorded crime figures’.
The recorded crime document this week continued: ‘The 201415 SCJS [the most recent avail- able] estimated that of the 688,000 incidents of crime, 38 per cent came to the attention of the police.’ It added the 201415 SCJS estimates that only 44 per cent of violent crimes were reported to the police.
The Scottish Government admitted yesterday that the ‘SCJS can help to identify the relative magnitude of crime not reported to the police and why crimes are not reported’.
Mr Matheson has previously welcomed an ‘encouraging’ 3 per cent fall in overall recorded crime to ‘historically low levels’. But his claim was based on figures which exclude nearly 60,000 assaults and many other crimes such as stalking and racial harassment. The total of these offences in 2016-17 was 288,961.
Earlier this week, Scottish Government officials insisted that recorded crime is ‘reported in exactly the same way as previous administrations’.
Deputy chief constable Rose Fitzpatrick said on Tuesday the ‘overall reduction in recorded crime’ means ‘fewer victims of crime in our communities’.
Last night, a Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The chance of falling victim to crime in Scotland has fallen significantly in recent years, and is lower than that in England and Wales.’
‘Alarming for ministers’