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Domestic Abuse and Stalking charges in Scotland, 2023-24

A report on Domestic Abuse and Stalking charges in Scotland 2023-24 was published. 

Date published

11 Sep 2024

This provides information on charges reported to the Procurator Fiscal and identified as relating to Domestic Abuse. It includes information on charges under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 (“DASA”), following the implementation of this legislation on 1 April 2019.

The main findings are:

  • In 2023-24, 30,100 charges were reported to COPFS with a domestic abuse identifier. This is a very slight decrease of 0.1% compared to the 2022-23 total of 30,139.

The vast majority of charges identified as relating to domestic abuse are prosecuted. An initial decision was made to proceed to court with 93% of charges in 2023-24.

  • The most common types of offences reported in 2023-24 with a domestic abuse identifier were threatening and abusive behaviour offences (27%), crimes against public justice (25%, includes bail offences) and common assault (24%).
  • In 2023-24, 1,831 charges were reported under DASA, accounting for 6.1% of all domestic abuse charges reported.
  • In 2023-24, 859 stalking charges under section 39 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 were reported to COPFS. Of these, 456 (53 percent) were identified as relating to domestic abuse.

Additional information

  1. A full copy of the publication can be accessed at Domestic abuse and stalking charges in Scotland | COPFS
  2. The figures quoted relate to the number of charges rather than the number of individuals charged or the number of incidents that gave rise to such charges.
  3. The publication does not include information on convictions or conviction rates. Many of the charges reported in 2023-24 will not yet have reached conviction stage. The Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database is the usual source for convictions data, and they have published figures for years up to 2021-22. They have also published a supporting document in Excel format which includes figures on offences convicted with a domestic abuse identifier recorded (at Tables 11 and 12) and figures on people prosecuted and convicted under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 (at Tables 3a, 3b and 3c).