Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) is a social survey which asks people about their experiences and perceptions of crime in Scotland. The survey is an important resource for both the government and public of Scotland. Respondents are selected at random from the Postal Address File and participation in the survey is entirely voluntary. The main aims of the SCJS are to:provide reliable statistics on people's experience of crime in Scotland, including services provided to victims of crimeassess the varying risk of crime for different groups of people in the populationexamine trends in the level and nature of crime in Scotland over timecollect information about people's experiences of, and attitudes on a range of crime and justice related issuesAn important role of the SCJS is to provide an alternative and complementary measure of crime to police recorded crime statistics. For further details of the scope and methodology of the SCJS, please see documentation. Information about the survey and links to publications may be found on the Scottish Government's Scottish Crime and Justice Survey webpages. Background and history of the SCJSPrevious surveys of victimisation in Scotland began with the Scottish components of the 1982 and 1988 sweeps of the British Crime Survey (BCS) (held at the Archive under SNs 4368 and 4599) The Scottish element of the 1988 BCS was also known as the Scottish Areas Crime Survey and coverage was limited in those early surveys to the areas south of the Caledonian Canal. From 2012, the BCS has been renamed the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) (held under GN 33174). The first independent Scotland-only crime survey was commissioned by the Scottish Office in 1993 under the title of the Scottish Crime Survey (SCS) and was followed by repeated sweeps in 1996 (both years held together under SN 3813), and again in 2000 (SN 4542) and 2003 (SN 5756). In 2004 the...