| They show that the gap between Dundee and its nearest rivals in the abuse stakes has widened.
In Dundee, the incidence of cases such as assault, indecency, vandalism, dishonesty and breach of the peace are now running at almost twice the Scottish average.
The Tayside Police area also had the highest level of domestic abuse incidents per 100,000 people — almost 30% higher than the national average.
According to Scottish Executive statistics, there were 2011 incidents in Dundee in 2003, the last year for which figures are available for comparison purposes.
That works out to a rate of 1405 cases per 100,000 of the city’s people.
The next worst council area was West Dunbartonshire, which had a rate of 1234 cases per 100,000, followed by Glasgow on 1210 incidents.
The figures for Angus, Fife and Perth and Kinross were 884, 564 and 675 cases respectively.
East Ayrshire had the fewest offences, with a rate of 292 per 100,000. The Scottish average was 784.
In the Executive’s figures for 2002, Dundee recorded 1823 incidents, which worked out to 1264 per 100,000 people.
Although that was still the worst in Scotland, Glasgow was not so far behind, with a rate of 1117 against a Scottish average of 712.
Adjusted on a population basis, Tayside Police recorded 1003 incidents of domestic abuse, considerably higher than the seven other force areas. The non-adjusted total for Tayside was 3879.
The next highest was the 834 per 100,000 recorded by Lothian and Borders.
Fife had the lowest level of 564 incidents.
Throughout Scotland, the number of incidents of domestic abuse recorded by police forces increased from 36,010 in 2002 to 39,643 in 2003 — a rise of 10%.
In all force areas, the overwhelming number of incidents were committed by men on women.
Females are at most risk of being victims of domestic abuse when aged between 22 and 30, and males when aged between 31 and 35.
The authors of the report said the most common crime in Scotland was petty assault, which accounted for 24% of the total, followed by breach of the peace on 19%.
In about 45% of the cases, the victims had previously been the subjects of domestic abuse. |
