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 survey underwent both a name change, to the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (SCVS) (SN 5757), and a major methodological change, with a move away from in-home face-to-face interviewing to telephone interviewing. However, the 2006 SCVS (SN 5784) returned to face-to-face interviewing after it was shown that the robustness of the data produced by the 2004 telephone survey could not be substantiated. From 2008-2009, the series name was changed to the present title, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, and it moved to a repeated annual cross-sectional schedule based on financial year. From 2012-13 the SCJS moved from annual to biennial survey covering the financial year however, the 2014-15 survey was the last biennial survey and currently the SCJS is conducted on an annual basis. See the documentation for further details. Special Licence dataFrom 2012-13 only the Main Questionnaire data are available under standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement. The Victim Form and Self-Completion data are available under Special Licence (SL). The SL data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard EUL. Prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version.
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This dataset contains the following files : 'Coreinfo.por' contains data from the main questionnaire, asked of every respondent. This includes perceptions of crime as a problem and fear of crime, all 'screening questions' gauging experience of crime, all socio-demographic information. 'Maina.por' contains data from the follow-up section 'version a' (asked of half the sample) on policing and the criminal justice system. This covers issues such as experience of police contact, satisfaction with this contact, general attitudes towards the police, experience of jury service, attitudes towards sentencing and scottish prisons. 'Mainb.por' contains data from the follow-up section 'version b' (asked of half the sample) on perceptions of crime. This covers issues such as the perceived level of crime in the local area, worry about crime, crime prevention measures taken, experience of threats or harassment and nuisance telephone calls. 'Victim.por' contains 'victim form' data. A maximum of five were completed for each respondent for each crime experienced. Data include details of the incident such as location, items stolen or damaged, cost to the victim, insurance cover, injuries incurred, and details of the offenders. Other data include the emotional response of the victim, whether the incident was reported to the police and the level of satisfaction with the police response, information provided to the victim, and the perceived seriousness of the incident. 'Self.por' contains data gathered from the self-completion questionnaire for 16-59 year olds. The data include admissions to a list of criminal or anti-social behaviours, knowledge and use of a list of controlled drugs, and (for the 1996 SCS only) experience of domestic violence. 'Young.por' contains data gathered from the young persons' self-completion questionnaire for 12-15 year olds. This covers a range of issues including worrying about crime and other matters, habitual behaviour such as 'hanging around', offending behaviour, contact with and attitudes towards the police, truancy, experience of crime as a victim, drug taking, and attitudes towards drugs.
Multi-stage stratified random sample
Face-to-face interview
Self-completion
Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) and Computer Assisted Self Interview (CASI) are used for the main questionnaires/victim forms and self-completion questionnaires respectively.
