§ Mr. Peter Bruinvelsasked the Sectetary of State for Scotland if he will give the most recent figures available of the number of indictable offences known to the police in Scotland; and what is the ratio per 100,000 of home population.
§ Mr. AncramThe term "indictable offences" is not used in Scottish criminal statistics. A rough equivalent would be "crimes"; such figures are, however, not strictly comparable with those of indictable offences for England and Wales because of differences in the legal systems and the classifications and counting rules used in compiling the statistics north and south of the border. The most recent information available on the number of crimes recorded by the police in Scotland was published in Scottish Home and Health Department Statistical Bulletin No. 2/1983, "Recorded Crime in Scotland 1982", on 30 September 1983. The 1982 figure of 435,081 is equivalent to a rate of 8,421 crimes per 100,000 of home population.
Police strength* (at 30 September 1983) Population of force area (at 30 June 1982) Police officers per 100,000 of population Central 532 273,033 195 Dumfries and Galloway 313 145,619 215 Fife 655 341,899 192 Grampian 950 490,270 194 Lothian and Borders 2,403 850,348 283 Northern 590 270,314 218 Strathclyde 6,781 2,398,900 283 Tayside 963 396,174 243 Total 13,187 5,166,557 255 * The police strength figures include officers on secondment, on national training courses and on central service and those employed at ports, airports and oil-related industrial sites whose costs are not borne entirely by police authorities.