Silent Crime: How Police Scotland’s ‘proportionate response’ strategy sits ill at ease with public perceptions

It has been one of the most controversial flashpoints in Scottish policing circles over the past year, exposing the financial pressures facing the nation’s single force and how it is being forced to cut its cloth accordingly.

For close to four months now, Police Scotland has been pursuing a strategy it describes as a “proportionate response” to crime. In layman’s terms, it means that its officers will no longer investigate every reported low level offence, with the decision based on variable factors such as the availability of CCTV, eyewitnesses, or other evidence.

Police Scotland announced earlier this year its new ‘proportionate response’ strategy was being rolled out nationwide. Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire | Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

In explaining the move, the force cited examples such as a report of damage to a car bumper in a car park, where there was no CCTV available, and no note had been left. Or someone who returned home after a month away to find ornaments missing from their front garden, with no witnesses or CCTV. 

The force’s assistant chief constable, Emma Bond, has stressed that the change is not about a new policy of non-investigation, but rather about putting in a national process to address how crime can be responded to proportionately. “If there are no lines of inquiry that can be pursued, then we should be clear about that with the person who has contacted us,” she explained.

The national rollout of the initiative, which will be completed by the end of 2024/25, followed a 12 week trial in the north east of Scotland which the force said helped to free up 2,657 police officer hours. During that pilot, five per cent of crime reports in A Division - covering Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, and Moray - were recorded and filed for “no further inquiry” following an assessment of threat, harm, risk, vulnerability and evidence.

Questions are being asked of how the force responds to reports of antisocial behaviour under the new strategy. Picture: John Devlin | John Devlin

Since work began to implement the policy nationwide in May, there have been questions over how it is working. For a force with a fundamental purpose of improving the safety and wellbeing of people, places and communities, there had been fears that the strategy would undermine a fragile public trust in the police. Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary, reasoned that “doing nothing” in response to thousands of crimes amounted to a betrayal of law-abiding citizens.

Thankfully, there is now an emerging body of data that can begin to tell us how the proportionate response move is being perceived, and its impact on the public’s confidence in policing. The Scottish Police Authority commissions polls from the Diffley Partnership every six months on issues aligned to its mission of overseeing Scottish policing in the public interest, and for the first time, questions were asked last month about how the police respond to crime from an investigative perspective. 

The answers are illuminating and concerning in equal measure. The most striking takeaway from the results, based on more than 2,600 responses, is that most people did not realise there had been such a significant shift; just 43 per cent of respondents said they were aware of the proportionate response policy. Speaking at a meeting of the authority’s policing performance committee on Wednesday, where the polling figures were discussed, Assistant Chief Constable Mark Sutherland conceded that the force had a “bit more work to do” in terms of how the strategy was explained, 

While the vast majority of respondents (85 per cent) to the August poll, believed the police should always prioritise the investigation of more serious crimes over minor ones, there was a clear tension that sits ill at ease with the new strategy. Most people questioned (51 per cent) said they agreed that regardless of whether there are obvious lines of enquiry, the police should investigate all minor issues the same way. Just 23 per cent of people disagreed with that approach.

The polling responses also found that even if an issue is deemed “fairly minor,” with low associated threat, harm and risk, more than three quarters of people (77 per cent) said the police should still invest time trying to discover if there are lines of enquiry to follow. 

That gap between what the public think the police should be doing, and what officers are actually doing, is part of a broader pattern of issues facing the force. The Diffley Partnership polling found that although the majority of people in Scotland rate police performance as being very good, good, or at least fair, around a quarter of people rate policing in general as being poor. In relation to tackling antisocial behaviour and bringing communities closer together, that rate jumps to almost half of all people.

Indeed, Tom Halpin, a member of the authority’s policing performance committee, and a former deputy chief constable of the legacy Lothian and Borders Police, is among those to link the various issues. He pointed out that there is a “direct relationship” between anti-social behaviour and public confidence in policing, and asked if the new policy meant every reported instance was being investigated. 

Replying, Mr Sutherland emphasised that where there was opportunity to investigate and detect offenders, the force would “absolutely” respond, but conceded that the force did “perhaps not” respond to every reported instance of anti-social behaviour. “The reason I say that is that it may be that the force is not the best service to respond to every instance of antisocial behaviour,” he went on. “The chief [constable] is very clear that we need to be in a position where we are tackling high harm effectively.”

He added: “If there was vulnerability identified, if there harm identified, and if there were lines of enquiry identified, we would absolutely be attending to support those individuals within our communities.”

The scrutiny of how the strategy is being received comes as National World, the publishers of The Scotsman, launches a UK-wide initiative signed to highlight low-level and unreported crime and the impact it has on communities. The Silent Crime campaign looks at the issue from the perspective of victims as well as police, with insight from experts.

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