Executive Summary

Crime surveys have been used increasingly in recent years to estimate the prevalence of crimes and offences, including those which are not recorded in police crime statistics, either because they have not been reported by victims or witnesses, or because they have not been recorded by the police. Given the numbers and distribution of ethnic minority households in Scotland, a random sample of all households does not produce a large enough sample of ethnic minority respondents to allow for viable analysis.

This report describes the results of a relatively small-scale survey undertaken during 1996, based on a sample of almost 1,200 adult residents of what was then Strathclyde Region. Face-to-face interviews were completed with 555 white respondents and 627 respondents drawn equally from the three most common ordinarily resident non-white Scottish ethnic minority groups: Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese. The interviews sought to assess the degree to which respondents had been victims of crime in the previous year, and to understand more about their general concerns about both crime and the criminal justice system. While not allowing for direct and detailed comparison with Scottish Crime Survey results, the study is of considerable importance in providing some points of comparison between a white sample and a sample of ethnic minority respondents.

Chapter one provides an introduction to the report, describes the uses and limitations of data recorded by crime surveys generally, and outlines the demographic structure of the sample. While such surveys can provide much valuable information about the nature and experience of victimisation, and about general attitudes towards the police, they preclude investigation of, amongst other things, 'white collar' and 'corporate' crimes.

Chapter two analyses responses to a series of questions about the perceived seriousness of various national social issues affecting Scotland, such as unemployment, drug abuse and crime, and other questions on how respondents viewed and used their local communities. This chapter also examines respondents' attitudes towards racial prejudice, harassment and abuse. Chapter three probes respondents' attitudes to, and concerns about, crime in general, and their feelings towards becoming victims of specific crimes.

The survey identified respondents who had been victims of crime during 1995, and chapter four concentrates specifically on their experiences of, and anxieties about, victimisation. Chapter five summarises the general attitudes to, and beliefs about, policing in Scotland held by respondents. Finally, chapter six concludes this report by describing some of the methodological difficulties arising from the survey, and presents a disaggregated summary of findings from each of the three ethnic minority sub-groups.

Main Findings

Sample characteristics

· When weighted, the samples reflected the information contained in the 1991 Census data for Strathclyde Region. The most significant and obvious differences were found to be between the white sample and the aggregated ethnic minority sample. The respondents in the white sample were older and, perhaps as a consequence, slightly more likely to be both female and economically inactive.

· Ethnic minority households were more likely to be composed of families with children, and less likely to be composed of lone adults or of single parents.

· Where there are statistically significant differences between the white and ethnic minority samples, the possibility cannot be discounted that they might be explained away by other characteristics apart from ethnicity.

Perceived seriousness of social issues in Scotland

· Respondents in the ethnic minority sample were less likely to define each of a range of social issues, including unemployment, crime, and drug abuse, as "problems" than were respondents in the white sample.

· White, Indian and Pakistani respondents defined unemployment as the most serious problem; however, Chinese respondents were more concerned about crime than about other issues. For respondents in the white sample, drug abuse was the second most serious problem, whilst crime was the second most important problem for Indian and Pakistani respondents.

Attitudes towards local communities

· Respondents in the white sample had lived, on average, longer in their area than members of all three ethnic minority sub-groups, and were noticeably less satisfied with living there.

· Chinese respondents were only about half as likely as other respondents to find it easy to spot strangers in their area.

· Whites were most likely to go out at night for leisure purposes, although this may reflect different cultural norms and have nothing to do with any anxiety about crime.

· Members of the ethnic minority sub-groups (particularly the Chinese) spent appreciably more time at work than whites.

· Members of all three ethnic minority sub-groups used locally provided facilities less frequently than did whites.

Attitudes towards racial issues

· Overall, nearly three in ten respondents in the aggregated ethnic minority sample, but only one-fifth of white respondents, thought that racial prejudice was "a problem" in Scotland. Approximately two-thirds of respondents in both white and ethnic minority samples did not define it as "a problem". However, more white than ethnic minority respondents were unable to say whether racial prejudice was "a problem".

· Those in the Indian sub-group were less concerned about racial prejudice than respondents in the other groups, including those in the white sample.

· Older respondents (particularly those belonging to ethnic minorities) were more likely than younger respondents to define racial prejudice as "a serious problem". Older ethnic minority females were most likely to consider it "serious".

· Ethnic minority respondents were no more likely than whites to have experienced abuse in the previous year, whether in their everyday lives or, for those in employment, at work. However, those ethnic minority respondents who had experienced any abuse in their everyday lives were subjected to types of abuse that were likely to be racially motivated significantly more frequently than were those white respondents who had experienced any abuse.

Concerns about crime

· A majority of the whole sample said they thought crime was "a serious problem in Scotland today", with no apparent difference in such views between the white and ethnic minority groups.

· When presented with a short list of specific crimes, respondents in the white sample were slightly more likely than ethnic minority respondents to rate them as "serious", but were significantly more likely to rate "sexual assaults on women" and "women being molested or pestered" as "serious".

Concerns about personal safety

· Ethnic minority respondents were significantly more likely than whites to say that they "never" or "rarely" walked around their local area unaccompanied after dark.

· When asked how safe they would feel being out alone after dark, four-fifths of the whole sample claimed that they would feel "very safe" or "fairly safe", although white respondents were more likely to go out at night than ethnic minority respondents.

· Respondents in the white sample were slightly more likely than ethnic minority respondents to feel that various areas were "unsafe" at night, and more likely to think so because of who else was there. Those ethnic minority respondents who felt that such areas were "unsafe" at night tended to think so because there were few other people in those locations.

Concerns about types of victimisation

· Overall, about two-fifths of the sample worried about housebreaking "some" or "all" of the time. There was no observable difference between white and ethnic minority respondents. Women, particularly younger women, were more worried.

· Fewer than one quarter of the sample worried at least "a bit" at least "some" of the time about becoming a victim of housebreaking, with respondents in all ethnic minority sub-groups appreciably less concerned than white respondents.

· Those respondents who were most worried about housebreaking cited different reasons for their concern, including the financial consequences of theft and damage, and the possibility of being assaulted during a housebreaking.

· Whites were no more likely than ethnic minority groups to worry about vehicle crime.

· Concern about assault was generally lower than concern about both housebreaking and vehicle crime. Levels of concern about assault were slightly higher for ethnic minority respondents, but this was mainly due to significantly higher levels of concern expressed by young ethnic minority females.

· About one-third of all respondents were worried about vandalism to their home "some" or "all" of the time, with ethnic minority respondents no more likely to be concerned than white respondents.

Experiences of housebreaking victims

· Respondents in the white sample were about twice as likely to have been victims of housebreaking during the previous year, and to have reported about twice as many incidents of housebreaking, as ethnic minority respondents.

· Victims were more likely to be concerned about housebreaking than were non-victims, but the racial origin of victims made no significant difference to levels of concern.

Experiences of vehicle crime victims

· Four-fifths of ethnic minority households, but only three-fifths of white households, owned a vehicle. However, ethnic minority vehicle-owning households were slightly less likely than white vehicle-owning households to be victims of vehicle crime.

· Victims were only slightly more concerned about vehicle crime than vehicle-owning non- victims, but white victims were twice as likely to be concerned than ethnic minority victims.

Experiences of assault victims

· Numbers of white and ethnic minority assault victims were similar. However, the number of ethnic minority assault victimisations was much higher due to a disproportionate number of repeat ethnic minority assault victims.

· Victims were significantly more likely to worry "a bit" and "a lot" about being mugged and robbed in the street than non-victims.

Experiences of vandalism victims

· There were many more white vandalism victims and victimisations than there were ethnic minority vandalism victims and victimisations. Ethnic minority victims were more likely than white victims to have experienced more than one vandalism incident.

· Vandalism victims (although few in number) were significantly more likely to worry than non-victims about having their home damaged by vandals.

Overall victimisation

· There was little difference in terms of racial origin between overall victimisation totals.

· A substantial proportion of respondents worried about each type of crime; by contrast, a relatively small proportion of respondents had actually been victimised. Those who had been victimised were only slightly more likely to worry overall than those who had not been victimised, although the ratios varied for different types of crime.

· White respondents were more likely to be victimised "when out" or "at home" (and were far more likely to be housebreaking victims), while ethnic minority respondents were far more likely than white respondents to be victimised "at work". There was no statistically significant difference in respondents' initial or later reactions to what was "the worst thing" about victimisation, or to whether or not they felt "targeted".

Attitudes towards policing

· Attitudes towards the police in Scotland were generally positive; a clear majority of each group of respondents felt that the police "do a good job" and "try to help the community".

· Indians were the most likely ethnic group to be wholly positive about the police.

Views about police behaviour

· About one-third of white respondents and two-fifths of ethnic minority respondents answered "don't know" to most of the questions about police behaviour.

· Of those who did answer the questions, white respondents were somewhat more negative about the police than ethnic minority respondents. White respondents were more likely to agree than disagree that the police would use threats or unreasonable pressure when questioning people; ethnic minority respondents were more likely to disagree than to agree.

The role of the police in the community

· Ethnic minority respondents were much more positive about the police role in the community than were white respondents.

· Proportionately fewer respondents in each ethnic group thought their own area was insufficiently policed than agreed that there were not enough police officers in Scotland.

Preparedness to intervene when witnessing crime

When presented with hypothetical scenarios and possible courses of action, white respondents said that they would be quite willing to intervene after witnessing criminal acts, but ethnic minority respondents were significantly less likely to say so. As three of the five courses of action involved direct contact with the police, this was a surprising finding since ethnic minority respondents were generally more positive about the police.

Attitudes towards interaction with the police

· An appreciable minority of the whole sample believed that some types of people were stopped unnecessarily by the police, but white respondents were more likely than ethnic minority respondents to think such people would be young or unemployed, while ethnic minority respondents were more likely than white respondents to think such people would be poor or drug-addicts.

· Most of the whole sample had not been in contact with police during the previous year (although a majority of those that had, expressed satisfaction with the way that they had been treated). Only a few respondents had been stopped by the police, and even fewer had been annoyed with the police or had wanted to complain about them.

Conclusions

This was the first crime survey conducted in Scotland with large numbers of both white and ethnic minority respondents, and it was intended to provide baseline data on comparative victimisation levels, concerns about crime, and general attitudes to policing.

A number of problems were encountered when designing and implementing the survey. First, non-response and refusal rates for members of the ethnic minority communities were even higher than expected. Second, ethnic minority respondents were consistently more likely than white respondents to answer "don't know" or "can't say"; perhaps because of cultural reasons, language difficulties or a combination of both. These issues ought to be addressed in future crime surveys of this nature.

Third, while standard weighting techniques did allow confidence that the samples achieved were representative, in terms of age and gender, of the communities from which they were drawn, one consequence was that the samples had different characteristics. Although data analysis controlled for any variance, it is important not to disregard the differences in community demographics between each of the ethnic minority sub-groups.

Despite these difficulties there were, however, many valuable findings. Similarities between white and ethnic minority respondents were more common than differences, but where differences existed it was generally the case that white respondents were more concerned by crime, more victimised by it, and more critical of the police than were ethnic minority respondents.

This does not imply that members of ethnic minority groups in Scotland did not experience crime-related problems, nor that such problems might be different to those experienced by the white population. Nevertheless, this survey did not discover any major differences between whites and members of ethnic minority groups in Scotland in terms of their contact with crime-related matters in general, and with the Scottish police in particular.

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