Domestic abuse and sex related offences stay at constant levels

Reports of domestic abuse offences in Scotland, and of sexual assault, stalking and harassment, remain at a constant level, according to the latest National Statistics figures published today as part of the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey 2014-15.

Based on a survey of almost 10,000 adults, over the year 2.9% of adults experienced either psychological or physical partner abuse, while 14.1% have experienced partner abuse since the age of 16.

Broken down by gender, 3.4% of women and 2.4% of men experienced partner abuse in the last 12 months, and 18.5% of women compared with 9.2% of men said they had done so since the age of 16.

The figure for the last 12 months was highest amongst young people aged 16-24 years (6.9%) and lowest amongst those aged 65 or over (0.4%). It was also higher, at 19%, for those living in the 15% most deprived areas, compared to 13.2% for the rest of Scotland.

The most common types of psychological abuse were having a partner behave in a jealous or controlling way (7.6%) and being repeatedly put down by a partner (6.4%).

For abuse generally, when children were in the house, nearly two-thirds (63.7%) said that children were present during the most recent incident. 

Sexual offences

For stalking and harassment, overall, 6.4% of adults experienced at least one form in the last 12 months. The risk was equal for men and women, but young people, particularly young women, experienced the highest level, with 12.7% of women aged 16-24 experiencing at least one type of stalking and harassment in the last 12 months.

Types of behaviour experienced included unwanted emails and texts (mentioned by 45% of those experiencing some form of harassment), silent, threatening or unwanted phone calls (32.7%), and obscene or threatening online contact (21.9%). More than half (54.9%) knew the offender in some way, whilst 15% said the offender was their partner. 

As for more serious sexual offences, 2.7% of adults have experienced at least one form of serious sexual assault since the age of 16, but this represents 4.6% of women but only 0.6% of men. For less serious sexual assaults, the figures were 13.5% for women and 2.7% for men. Over 90% of offenders were male.

Some types of offence were more likely to be perpetrated by strangers, such as indecent exposure (70.9%) and unwanted sexual touching (39.9%), whilst partners were most likely to carry out sexual threats (55.1%). 

Click to view the full reports for domestic abuse and for stalking, harassment and sexual offences.