Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS)

Last updated on 10/12/2014 - 15:06
Alternative Title: 
Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (SCVS); Scottish Crime Survey (SCS); British Crime Survey.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) is a household survey of people's experiences and perceptions of crime. The main aims of the SCJS are to:

  • provide an alternative and complementary measure of crime to police-recorded crime statistics
  • examine trends in the level and nature of crime over time
  • assess victimisation rates and varying crime risks
  • collect information about people's experiences of, and attitudes towards, a range of crime related issues (e.g. concern about crime, attitudes to the police, drug misuse, domestic violence).

Topics covered by the survey include public perceptions of crime, other forms of victimisation, satisfaction with the police and knowledge and use of controlled drugs and solvents.

The survey was run as part of the British Crime Survey in 1982 & 1988, then as the Scottish Crime Survey tri-ennially from 1993, then run biennially as  the Scottish Crime & Victimisation Survey from 2004. From 2008 it has been run annually as the SCJS with a continuous format with annual reporting, adopted a core and modular design and includes a much bigger sample size (16,000 adult individuals).

The Scottish data collected as part of the 1982 and 1988 rounds of the British Crime Survey is available from the UK Data Service under the Study Numbers SN 4368 (1982) and SN 4599 (1988).

 

URL: 
http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/series/?sn=2000046
Spatial Coverage: 
Scotland
Data Creator: 
Scottish Government
Time Period: 

Repeated cross-sectional study: 1993 onwards. Approximately once every three years pre-2008; annual reporting post-2008.

Data Publisher:

Documentation: 

Background and interviewee information, and publications can be found on the Scottish Government website.

Note: 

In April 2008 the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) replaced the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (SCVS) which had replaced the Scottish Crime Survey (SCS) in 2004.

Summary and detailed aggregate statistics from the SCJS are available from the Scottish Government website.

File Descriptions: 

Microdata files from 1993 to latest are available. For microdata files from earlier years, see 'British crime survey 1982: Scottish data', and 'British crime survey 1988: Scottish data'.

UKDA Study Number: 
33330
Data Access: 

Users must register with the UKDS before accessing data files.