By CSE Aware

  The United Nations and other experts have highlighted that women with learning disabilities (LDs) are at higher risk of experiencing gender-based violence (GBV) because of the lifelong isolation, dependency and oppression they often they experience. These inequalities also put them at risk of commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). Despite global recognition of these impacts, in Scotland to date there is very limited evidence and information on how commercial sexual exploitation affects women with learning disabilities. In the recent report Unequal, Unheard, Unjust: But not Hidden Anymore,the Scottish Commission forPeoplewithLearningDisabilities (SCLD) highlighted SEason of the types of GBV women with learning disabilities experienced. What’s more, this groundbreaking report specifically recommended that the Scottish Government “commission national research examining the commercial sexual exploitation of women with learning disabilities in Scotland,” noting the lack of documented information. While some information does exist about learning disabled women’s experiences of selling or exchanging sex, it is mostly anecdotal and has not been documented nor analysed to truly understand the effects on this population and the effectiveness of, andgaps in, service responses.The present report was born from therecognition that there is a significant knowledge gap on the issue of CSE and its intersection with this particularly vulnerable group of women. Whilst the present report is not the much needed full-scale research which SCLD and ourselves are calling for (see recommendations), it does provide initial findings and recommendations from the exploratory researchweconductedoverthecourseofthreemonths. The Aims Of This research were to: Collect and document evidence of learningisabledwomen’sexperiencesof sellingorexchangingsex. Understandthedynamicsofwomen’s involvement and their specific needs. Explore service responses and challenges and opportunities when addressing women's experiences and needs. Produce Initial Recommendations thattheScottishGovernment and organisations canuseas abasis to design service and policy responses that meet theneeds women with LDs impacted byCSE.

Glasgow: CSE, 3035. 32p.

By Susan A. Batchelor and Caitlin Gormley

Interpersonal repeat violent victimisation

The definition and conceptualisation of interpersonal repeat violent victimisation (RVV) is contested. Interpersonal violence refers to violence between individuals, often subdivided into community violence and violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse. These two forms of interpersonal violence are often studied separately, using divergent theoretical and methodological approaches (Batchelor et al. 2019). Mainstream research on RVV is largely quantitative in orientation, counting recurrent incidences of the same type of violent offence against the same target and identifying risk factors that make some people more prone to victimisation than others. Feminist research on men's violence against women and girls more often draws on qualitative methods to explore experiences of overlapping and intersecting forms of violence, conceptualising repeat physical violence as part of a process of coercive control located within a context of gendered inequality and norms.

Building on these insights, the current research adopts a qualitative approach to unpack patterns of RVV evident in official statistics on non-sexual violence in Scotland. Unlike survey research, which asks respondents to self-report the number of incidents they have experienced over a specified period, typically the previous 12 months, the present study acknowledges the impact of repeat violence and associated trauma on memory, imposing no time limit on participants' experiences. As a result, whilst we invited participants to reflect on recent experiences of physical violence, they also often related experiences of other forms of violence, experienced across the life course.

Edinburgh: Scottish Government, Safer Communities Directorate, 2023. 147p

By Scottish Government, Minister for Victims and Community Safety, Justice Directorate

The former Minister for Community Safety, Ash Regan MSP, asked the Scottish Community Safety Network (SCSN) and the Scottish Government to undertake a review of antisocial behaviour (ASB). This report presents the findings from work undertaken to gather views on the current approach to antisocial behaviour in Scotland. It is based on discussions with key stakeholders across Scotland including those who have experienced antisocial behaviour, frontline staff seeking to prevent and tackle antisocial behaviour and community and equality groups including those representing minority communities in Scotland. The discussions included people from both urban and rural settings across different areas of Scotland.

The findings do not amount to a definitive statement on what people feel needs to be done to change the way we view, prevent and address antisocial behaviour. However, they do provide a qualitative evidence base given the size and breadth of engagement. It is clear from these sessions that there are no quick fixes or easy solutions here. Therefore, we need to look at how we set the path to begin the journey and identify future work activity and milestones.

Overall, 25 engagement discussions involving close to 250 people, representing a wide range of interests (Annex B - methodology summary) were held by the Scottish Community Safety Network and the Scottish Government. We are indebted to all who shared their time and their expertise. This report reflects the views, opinions and experiences from those discussions, and additional written feedback received.

The Scottish Government and its partners believe that everyone has the right to be, and feel, safe in their community and homes. Embedding change which will have a positive sustainable impact, requires a process of innovating, evaluating and building on success. We can also learn from challenging issues and sharing best practice.

What has come across very clearly during this engagement, is that prevention is better than cure and that working collaboratively in partnership is essential to finding long term solutions to address antisocial behaviour and make all of our communities safer and more welcoming places to live.

We all have a role to play in preventing and tackling antisocial behaviour and hope that this report will be used as the starting point of a much broader and deeper discussion of these issues, leading to a long-term road map of how we can work collectively to prevent and address antisocial behaviour in effective ways.

We can, and should, come together to address the mutual problems we face in our communities, but we will achieve little if we approach this in a way that is not properly considered, including the potential for unintended consequences, and therefore we need to develop structures which we can work within to achieve change and incrementally build on approaches which are proven to be successful.

As such, two recommendations arise from our assessment of the qualitative evidence:

Recommendation one

That Scottish Ministers, and statutory, non-statutory and voluntary sector service providers and communities themselves recognise that our approach to preventing and tackling antisocial behaviour needs to be a long-term approach (that recognises societal changes and evolves) and that we need to make a commitment to a programme of activity which will provide a framework that will guide us in taking forward this agenda in alignment with other linked national policies.

Recommendation two

An independently chaired group of experts, potentially including statutory, non-statutory and voluntary service providers, community representatives and other key interests should be brought together to develop a long-term framework for addressing antisocial behaviour.

This should have a strong focus on steps that can be taken to prevent antisocial behaviour from occurring as well as considering the effectiveness of current approaches to tackling the antisocial behaviour which occurs.

The findings in this and other relevant, existing reports should form the foundations of the group’s work and they should not be restricted in identifying what areas are most important to move this agenda forward, which could include considerations of the effectiveness of current legislation.

The group should be able to commission and gather evidence to support their work and have a free hand to engage with anyone who can support this agenda. Central to this work should be building broad support for any long-term work that the group proposes.

Edinburgh:

2023. 63p.

Download here: The former Minister for Community Safety, Ash Regan MSP, asked the Scottish Community Safety Network (SCSN) and the Scottish Government to undertake a review of antisocial behaviour (ASB). This report presents the findings from work undertaken to gather views on the current approach to antisocial behaviour in Scotland. It is based on discussions with key stakeholders across Scotland including those who have experienced antisocial behaviour, frontline staff seeking to prevent and tackle antisocial behaviour and community and equality groups including those representing minority communities in Scotland. The discussions included people from both urban and rural settings across different areas of Scotland.

The findings do not amount to a definitive statement on what people feel needs to be done to change the way we view, prevent and address antisocial behaviour. However, they do provide a qualitative evidence base given the size and breadth of engagement. It is clear from these sessions that there are no quick fixes or easy solutions here. Therefore, we need to look at how we set the path to begin the journey and identify future work activity and milestones.

Overall, 25 engagement discussions involving close to 250 people, representing a wide range of interests (Annex B - methodology summary) were held by the Scottish Community Safety Network and the Scottish Government. We are indebted to all who shared their time and their expertise. This report reflects the views, opinions and experiences from those discussions, and additional written feedback received.

The Scottish Government and its partners believe that everyone has the right to be, and feel, safe in their community and homes. Embedding change which will have a positive sustainable impact, requires a process of innovating, evaluating and building on success. We can also learn from challenging issues and sharing best practice.

What has come across very clearly during this engagement, is that prevention is better than cure and that working collaboratively in partnership is essential to finding long term solutions to address antisocial behaviour and make all of our communities safer and more welcoming places to live.

We all have a role to play in preventing and tackling antisocial behaviour and hope that this report will be used as the starting point of a much broader and deeper discussion of these issues, leading to a long-term road map of how we can work collectively to prevent and address antisocial behaviour in effective ways.

We can, and should, come together to address the mutual problems we face in our communities, but we will achieve little if we approach this in a way that is not properly considered, including the potential for unintended consequences, and therefore we need to develop structures which we can work within to achieve change and incrementally build on approaches which are proven to be successful.

As such, two recommendations arise from our assessment of the qualitative evidence:

Recommendation one

That Scottish Ministers, and statutory, non-statutory and voluntary sector service providers and communities themselves recognise that our approach to preventing and tackling antisocial behaviour needs to be a long-term approach (that recognises societal changes and evolves) and that we need to make a commitment to a programme of activity which will provide a framework that will guide us in taking forward this agenda in alignment with other linked national policies.

Recommendation two

An independently chaired group of experts, potentially including statutory, non-statutory and voluntary service providers, community representatives and other key interests should be brought together to develop a long-term framework for addressing antisocial behaviour.

This should have a strong focus on steps that can be taken to prevent antisocial behaviour from occurring as well as considering the effectiveness of current approaches to tackling the antisocial behaviour which occurs.

The findings in this and other relevant, existing reports should form the foundations of the group’s work and they should not be restricted in identifying what areas are most important to move this agenda forward, which could include considerations of the effectiveness of current legislation.

The group should be able to commission and gather evidence to support their work and have a free hand to engage with anyone who can support this agenda. Central to this work should be building broad support for any long-term work that the group proposes.

Edinburgh: Scottish Government, Justice Directorate, 2023. 63p.

By Safer Communities Directorate

Executive Summary

• There is an ongoing cost of living crisis in Scotland, and the rest of the United Kingdom, which is characterised by higher energy costs, higher food and other household costs and real term pay decreases. This paper focuses on the relationship between this cost crisis and crime in Scotland.

• The academic evidence is by no means conclusive in favour of a certain economic variable having a relationship with overall or total crime. This is an important finding as it dispels the idea that worsening economic conditions will inevitably result in a rise in crime.

• Unlike the recessions of the 1980s, the 1990s and 2008 which brought periods of higher unemployment and decreasing inflation, the current cost crisis is characterised by increasing levels of inflation, combined with low levels of unemployment. Therefore, whilst the existing literature helps us to understand how previous economic shifts have impacted upon crime in the past, any attempts to use this literature to predict the impact of the cost crisis on crime is methodologically unadvisable. We must rely on present day data to monitor crime trends during this current period of cost crisis in Scotland.

• Gross Domestic Product is too broad a measure when it comes to determining the impact of the economy on crime. Therefore, we must specify and explore how changes in specific economic variables impacts upon crime.

• For example, analysis undertaken by Scottish Government statisticians explored the relationship between levels of unemployment in Scotland, all recorded crime, and some specific crime types from 1971 until the present day. The analysis found a strong positive linear correlation between unemployment and overall recorded crime, housebreaking and, theft of a motor vehicle. Considering forecasted increases in unemployment, this relationship is noteworthy.

• We know from the academic evidence that relative falls in the wages of low wage workers increases rates of property and violent crime. This finding has present-day relevance given recent real-term falls in wages as a result of the cost crisis.

• The academic evidence also tells us that increases in inequality and poverty rates increase the rates of property crime and violent crime. However, it is not yet clear how these two economic variables are being affected by the cost crisis and therefore if, and how, they may impact upon crime.

• Non-economic factors play a significant role with regard to fluctuations in overall crime rates as well as rates of specific crime types and are impossible to precisely disentangle from the economic factors that impact upon crime. Such factors include the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of police officers, and population demographics.

• For example, analysis undertaken by Scottish Government statisticians found a strong, positive, linear correlation between the proportion of young men (16-24) in the population and overall recorded crimes of housebreaking and theft of a motor vehicle. Population forecasts tell us that over the next 10 years the size of this group is projected to steadily increase.

• This paper's case study on housebreaking further explores this phenomenon of economic and non-economic factors impacting upon the rates of specific crimes. The case study suggests that housebreaking, an acquisitive crime, may not be susceptible to the cost crisis. This contrasts with findings from the academic evidence review and suggests the presence of non-economic factors that are acting to limit any rise in housebreaking.

• That being said, analysis demonstrates a rise in overall recorded crime and Crimes of Dishonesty that may be the result of cost crisis pressures. It is unclear, however, whether crime is simply returning to pre-pandemic levels. Of particular note is the large uplift in shoplifting, which increased by 21% in the year ending June 2023, when compared to the previous year.

• With regard to next steps, a second occasional paper will be published in 2024 which will draw on the latest Police Recorded crime data and the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey data and will focus on the impact of the cost crisis on violent crime and domestic abuse in addition to revisiting the crime types identified in this paper.

Edinburgh: Scottish Government, Social Research, 2023. 28p.

By Steve Kirkwood and Leo Kritikos

High-level political support for restorative justice in Scotland is at its strongest for many years, and yet its availability is lower now than in the mid-2000s. To explore the reasons behind this paradox, we undertook an oral history project focused on the origins and development of restorative justice in Scotland. Based on 15 interviews with professionals, we tracked how the nature, objectives and scale of restorative justice has evolved in Scotland over time. Our analysis shows how the meaning and purpose of justice initiatives can shift, providing insight into policy development and broader debates about the role of justice responses.

The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice Early View, 2024.

By Sarah Pedersen,  Natascha Mueller-Hirth, Leia Miller

COVID-19 exacerbated challenges that already existed in the policing of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in remote and rural northern Scotland. Victims’ direct access to the police and third-sector organisations was impeded by social distancing while the pandemic exacerbated extant issues relating to staffing, particularly in relation to female police officers. On the positive side, the flexibility that already characterised rural and remote policing continued, and police officers and third-sector organisations worked together to support victims. The move to videoconferencing was hailed as a positive move in an area where travel to meetings or court can be difficult and expensive. A lack of training for officers with no specific GBV role was identified as particularly problematic during the pandemic when officers on the ground in rural and remote Scotland had to take over work usually undertaken by specialist task forces.

Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 2023. 12p.

By Alistair Fraser, Keir Irwin-Rogers, Fern Gillon, Susan McVie, Tilman Schwarze

Violence is a critical issue around the world. In addition to the high financial costs, it takes a heavy toll on community wellbeing. Young people are most commonly affected by violence, with the World Health Organisation estimating that 43% of global homicides involve people aged 10-29 (WHO 2016). Over the last two decades, Scotland has witnessed a remarkable reduction in serious violence, including homicide, and has managed to sustain this while rates of violence in other parts of the UK have increased. This has led to an increasing consensus around Scotland’s ‘public health approach’ to violence reduction and heavy investment in specialist violence reduction units across England and Wales. Despite the perceived success of the Scottish approach, however, there has to date been a lack of evidence on the causes of violence reduction in Scotland. While it is clear that lessons can be learned, there is confusion over what public health approaches are, how they work, and the conditions under which such ideas can travel. This briefing paper aims to summarise the evidence-base on violence reduction in Scotland and highlight key lessons for other jurisdictions. It is based on a three-year research project, funded by the ESRC, involving detailed analysis of statistical data on violence, 190 interviews with senior stakeholders and community participants across the UK, reviews of Scottish Government policy, and case-studies with communities affected by violence. The briefing focuses on lessons that can be drawn from Scotland’s violence reduction journey, answering four basic questions: (1) What has changed? (2) Why did it change? (3) Where are we now and (4) Where do we go from here?

Glasgow: Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, 2024. 32p.

By Carolyn Conley.

Even though England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were under a common Parliament in the nineteenth century, cultural, economic, and historical differences led to very different values and assumptions about crime and punishment. For example, though the Scots were the most likely to convict accused killers, English, Welsh and Irish killers were two and a half times more likely to be executed for their crimes. In Certain Other Countries, Carolyn Conley explores how the concepts of national identity and criminal violence influenced each other in the Victorian-era United Kingdom. It also addresses the differences among the nations as well as the ways that homicide trials illuminate the issues of gender, ethnicity, family, privacy, property, and class. Homicides reflect assumptions about the proper balance of power in various relationships. For example, Englishmen were ten times more likely to kill women they were courting than were men in the Celtic nations.

By combining quantitative techniques in the analysis of over seven thousand cases as well as careful and detailed readings of individual cases, the book exposes trends and patterns that might not have been evident in works using only one method. For instance, by examining all homicide trials rather than concentrating exclusively on a few highly celebrated ones, it becomes clear that most female killers were not viewed with particular horror, but were treated much like their male counterparts.

The conclusions offer challenges and correctives to existing scholarship on gender, ethnicity, class, and violence. The book also demonstrates that the Welsh, Scots, and English remained quite distinct long after their melding as Britons was announced and celebrated. By blending a study of trends in violent behavior with ideas about national identity, Conley brings together rich and hotly debated fields of modern history. This book will be valuable both for scholars of crime and violence as well those studying British history.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2007. 255p.