Crime and justice

Recorded crime rate (Scotland)

Crimes recorded by Police Scotland for every 1,000 people, by council area.

Level of detail
Council
Published for
Nation and Council
Covers
Scotland
Updates
Yearly
Latest period
2025/26
Published
13 August 2026
Fetched by Open Index
15 October 2026
Licence
Open Government Licence 3.0

Where it covers

  • Scotland
  • England(not covered)
  • Wales(not covered)
  • Northern Ireland(not covered)

This layer covers Scotland only. For England, see street-level crime.

This layer covers Scotland only. For Wales, see street-level crime.

This layer covers Scotland only. For Northern Ireland, see street-level crime.

  • England0 of 296 councils have a figure
  • Wales0 of 22 councils have a figure
  • Scotland32 of 32 councils have a figure
  • Northern Ireland0 of 11 councils have a figure

329 councils have no figure for 2025/26. The map hatches each one and gives the reason.

  • This layer covers Scotland only. For England, see street-level crime. Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees, Darlington, Halton and 290 more
  • This layer covers Scotland only. For Wales, see street-level crime. Isle of Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Wrexham and 16 more
  • This layer covers Scotland only. For Northern Ireland, see street-level crime. Antrim and Newtownabbey, Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon, Belfast, Causeway Coast and Glens, Derry City and Strabane, Fermanagh and Omagh and 5 more

How it is made

Open Index shows the figures as Scottish Government publishes them, for the areas they were published for: nations and councils.

Larger areas use the publisher’s own figures, never an average of smaller areas.

Zoom in past council level and the map keeps the council shapes and says so, rather than inventing detail.

  • Nation1996/97 to 2025/26 (30 periods)
  • Council1996/97 to 2025/26 (30 periods)

Before you use it

  • These are crimes recorded by Police Scotland, not all the crime that happens. Changes in the law and in how police record crime change the figures.
  • The Scottish Government publishes rates per 10,000 people. Open Index divides them by 10 to show crimes per 1,000 people.
  • All crimes here means Groups 1 to 5 in the Scottish Government's classification, which are the more serious crimes. It leaves out lesser offences such as antisocial behaviour and road traffic offences.
  • Crimes are counted in the year the police record them, which is not always the year they happened. Years run from 1 April to 31 March.
  • The rates for 2024/25 and 2025/26 use the 2024 mid-year population estimates, because the 2025 estimates came out after the Scottish Government's crime bulletin.
  • Rates are per resident. Places that many people visit or work in, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, can show higher rates because crimes against visitors and commuters are counted against residents only.
  • Small councils, such as Shetland, Orkney and Na h-Eileanan Siar, record few crimes, so their rates move around from year to year.
  • Scottish figures are not directly comparable with England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Scotland tends to record each crime in an incident, where England and Wales tend to record only the most serious one.

Colours on the map

Fixed breaks, held for every period, so colours mean the same over time.

How Open Index describes it

Page text on Open Index comes from this layer’s sentence rules, filled in with published figures. For Glasgow City:

In 2025/26, the recorded crime rate in Glasgow City was 84.9 per 1,000 people.

That compares with 56.9 per 1,000 people across Scotland.

Source and licence

Scottish Government, from Police Scotland
Edition
Recorded crimes and offences 1996/97 to 2025/26
Published
13 August 2026
Fetched by Open Index
15 October 2026
Credit line

Source: Scottish Government, Recorded Crimes and Offences (data.gov.scot). Crown copyright. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Use this data