SCOTLAND’S new revenge porn laws have helped police press 421 charges against people “disclosing or threatening to disclose an intimate image” since being implemented last year.
But the new offence was only partially responsible for a staggering hike in the number of sexual crimes committed.
New statistics, released yesterday, saw a rise from 11,092 in 2016-17 to 12,487 in 2017-18.
The number of rapes reported to police increased by 22% in 2017/18 compared to the previous year. That’s an increase of 99% since 2010, taking the figures to their worst level since 1971.
Deputy Chief Constable Fiona Taylor, Police Scotland, said she believed the increase was down to more woman feeling comfortable enough to come forward: “The increase in recorded sexual crime suggests victims feel more confident coming forward to report to us and we want to support and encourage people to continue doing this. We will continue working with our partners and communities to improve our ability to keep people safe.”
But Rape Crisis Scotland’s Sandy Brindley said it wasn’t as simple as that: “Rape is a particularly underreported crime, which means that it hard to tell how much of this increase is due to people having more confidence in coming forward, and how much is due to more sexual crime being committed.
“What we do know is that our services are seeing unprecedented levels of demand, with more and more people coming forward to seek support. Some people are looking for support for incidents that happened recently, others about something that happened many years ago.”
Overall, there were 244,504 crimes recorded by the police in Scotland in 2017-18, a 1% increase on last year.
Crimes of dishonesty increased by 1% from 113,205 in 2016-17 to 114,474 in 2017-18.
Crimes of fire-raising and vandalism decreased by 2% from 52,514 in 2016-17 to 51,322 in 2017-18.
The clear up rate for all recorded crimes was 49.5% down 0.5 point.
Scottish Tory MSP Liam Kerr said that meant the majority of criminals were getting away it.
He said: “The one per cent rise in crime might seem a small number on the face of it, but in reality it translates to thousands of incidents.
“What’s equally worrying is such a stark failure to solve and detect crimes. The police always do the best they can but the SNP simply have to resource them properly. The situation in Scotland now is that, should you commit a crime, you have more chance of not being caught than being brought to justice.”
Lib Dem MSP Liam McArthur said officers and staff were being “let down by a lack of resources, the loss of valuable civilian expertise and the reliance on outdated IT systems.”
Scottish Labour’s MSP Daniel Johnson said crime was “sky-rocketing” under the SNP.
He said it was “clear something is going seriously wrong”
“It is essential the SNP starts giving brave police officers the resources they need to keep people safe.
“But the answer cannot be just more and better policing – this increase is also down to the SNP’s wider failure to invest in our economy, create jobs and tackle poverty.”
Justice secretary Humza Yousaf said that despite the increase, Scotland’s recorded crime was still at its second lowest level since 1974.
“Scotland’s streets are now safer and less violent than they were a decade ago,” he said.
“This is due in no small part to the pioneering work across the justice system, NHS, schools and other partners to prevent crime at its source. It was also this Government which took action to introduce tougher penalties for knife crime.”
He added: “While any small rise in crime is disappointing, we remain focused with the police and other partners on keeping crime at historically low levels.”
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