Background

According to the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey 2023/24, victims of crime are less likely to be confident in police than non-victims. A victim is a person who has had a crime committed against them. This can mean someone attacked them, abused them or stole from them.

While the majority of victims are confident in policing to respond quickly, deal with incidents as they occur and solve crimes (ranging from 51 and 57 percent, where an opinion was expressed), they are consistently less confident than non-victims (ranging from 55 and 63 percent).

When asked about confidence in the ability of police to prevent crime victims who expressed an opinion recorded a lower rate of confidence (36%) than non-victims (44%).

Regarding levels of confidence in catching criminals, victims who expressed an opinion recorded less confidence (45%) than non-victims (55%).

The survey noted positive confidence levels relating to support for victims in both groups where an opinion was expressed, with slightly higher confidence (58%) for non-victims than victims (53%).

Although a higher proportion of victims were positive about police in their local area doing a good job, there was a nine-percentage point difference between victims and non-victims. Victims were eight percentage points more likely to feel that police were doing a poor/very poor job in comparison to non-victims.

The Victim Centred Approach Project, commissioned by the Scottish Government’s Victims’ Taskforce, aimed to explore potential models of service delivery that could enable a victim-centred approach throughout the criminal justice system. This research found that victim-survivors have poor experiences of the wider criminal justice system that were “disappointing, distressing and at times deeply frustrating and re-traumatising”. The project noted that police have a primary role in referring victims to support as they are often the first contact.