Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Nationalist Party have made a habit, in their nearly 15 years of governance, of putting criminals first and disregarding the views and concerns of victims of crime. This dangerous policy platform has led to Scotland experiencing soaring numbers of violent and racially aggravated crimes, putting minority ethnic individuals at risk. In addition, the SNP’s mismanagement and centralisation of the Police has left them completely incapable of dealing with such soaring levels of crime. The Scottish Conservatives demand that the Scottish Government put victims of crime first, and stop turning Scotland into a comfortable home for criminal activity.
Scotland’s soaring crime rate is clear to see by the grim and unpleasant statistics released by the JPI Media Data Unit, and the figures are particularly damning for the Scottish Government. The figures highlight that throughout the whole of Scotland racially aggravated crime has seen a 4% increase, with this differing to mind-boggling rates when we look more locally such as in Peterhead which saw a 241% increase. In 2019 we saw a massive spike in violent crime in Scotland, growing by 10%, with a 16% rise in robberies and an 8% rise in sexual assault and rapes. While this, naturally, fell during the pandemic, trends are now showing that crime is returning to these 2019 levels with some crimes such as violent non-sexual assaults already higher than pre-pandemic levels. With all of this in mind, last November the SNP Government decided to implement new sentencing guidelines advising that criminals under 25 should be spared jail as much as possible, and were not possible the prison sentence “should be shorter than that which would have been imposed on an older person for the same, or a similar, offence”. To many people this will be a shocking and outrageous “solution” to rising crime in Scotland, putting victims of crime at risk both in terms of physical wellbeing and their mental health.
Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary Jamie Greene said:
“The SNP’s soft touch approach to crime simply abandons victims, undermines hardworking police and lets criminals walk away from punishment, all of which is contributing to a rise in violent crime and fraud. Under the SNP’s regime, many dangerous individuals often avoid jail and are simply sent away with a slap on the wrists... The Scottish Conservatives have repeatedly called for local policing to be restored to our communities because a visible police presence is essential to detect, prevent and reduce crime which will help to drive down these worrying figures.”
Unfortunately, in the United Kingdom (and indeed around the world) victims of crime are disproportionately those from ethnic minority backgrounds, due to a large variety of factors. Across the United Kingdom, just 13% of those who said they were a victim of crime were from a white ethnic background; this rises to 20% from those from mixed ethnic backgrounds and 15% from Asian ethnic backgrounds. As such, when we talk about victims of crime, we are inherently talking about factors and issues disproportionately affecting BAME individuals.
It is clear that Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government’s soft touch approach to crime is having the worst possible effect on the Scottish public, showing increasing crime rates and letting victims of crime down. Reducing sentencing, centralising our emergency services and cutting public service funding are not the way to reduce crime and assist victims of crime. The Scottish Conservatives pledge to always put victims of crime first.