As protests over immigration and asylum accommodation spread across Scotland, Police Scotland’s own disclosures expose a significant gap in the information available to the public. Thousands of accused records lack usable nationality information, immigration status cannot be routinely searched in the national crime system, and police crime and custody records cannot automatically be cross-matched for the statistical enquiries examined. The missing information leaves important claims about immigration and crime unresolved and raises wider questions about criminal-justice accountability.
Scotland is experiencing a sustained public dispute over immigration, asylum accommodation and crime. Demonstrations have taken place in towns and cities, counter-protests have followed, and police resources have been diverted to managing the resulting tensions. Yet one of the central factual questions in the controversy remains unanswered: how much recorded crime in Scotland involves asylum seekers, refugees, foreign nationals or people without lawful immigration status?
Police Scotland cannot produce a reliable national answer from its existing crime-recording system. Its freedom of information disclosures show that nationality is missing or unknown in substantial numbers of records involving identified accused people, while asylum and immigration status are not maintained as routinely searchable fields. Information potentially held in separate custody records cannot automatically be cross-matched with the national crime system for the statistical enquiries examined.
That leaves competing claims about immigration and offending difficult to assess. Those who believe immigration is contributing to rising crime cannot establish the national scale of that contribution from published crime figures. Those who maintain that immigration has no significant relationship with offending cannot establish that conclusion from the same records. Neither position is proved simply because the information is missing.
The public dispute is measurable. In a report presented to the Scottish Police Authority in July 2026, Police Scotland recorded 144 anti-immigration protests across 19 Scottish towns and cities during the reporting period ending on 22 June. Falkirk accounted for 52 per cent of them, with almost all of those demonstrations taking place around the Cladhan Hotel, which was being used to accommodate asylum seekers.
The force also recorded 83 counter-protests, around 80 per cent of which responded to anti-immigration demonstrations. Since Operation Leste began in August 2025, Police Scotland had cancelled 2,888 officer rest days to maintain resources for planned protests. Overtime and associated allowances cost approximately £1.1 million during the 2025–26 financial year.
| Police Scotland finding | Recorded figure |
|---|---|
| Anti-immigration protests | 144 |
| Towns and cities affected | 19 |
| Share of protests in Falkirk | 52% |
| Counter-protests | 83 |
| Cancelled police officer rest days since Operation Leste began | 2,888 |
| Overtime and associated allowances, 2025–26 | Approximately £1.1 million |
Police Scotland’s assessment distinguishes peaceful demonstrations from criminal behaviour and extremist activity. It reports that most protests remain lawful and peaceful, involving concerned community members and organised activists. It also records incidents involving criminality, racist extremist activity and hostility towards police.
The force acknowledged that some spontaneous mobilisation followed allegations about criminal offences involving asylum seekers or publicly identified foreign-national offenders. Some reports were accurate; others involved misinformation. This distinction matters because neither every protest nor every allegation can be treated as evidence of a crime committed by an asylum seeker.
Nor does the police report establish that deficiencies in crime statistics caused the demonstrations. The immediate reasons for individual protests may differ. What the reporting gap does establish is that official national crime data cannot settle several of the factual questions being argued over.
Meanwhile, Scotland’s recorded crime is increasing. The 12 months ending June 2026 saw 323,531 crimes recorded by Police Scotland, seven per cent more than in the preceding year. Sexual crimes increased by nine per cent, crimes of dishonesty by ten per cent and non-sexual violent crimes by seven per cent.
Those figures establish that more crime was recorded. They cannot identify the nationality or immigration status of every person responsible. Some crimes never result in an identified accused person. Even among detected crimes, Police Scotland’s own records demonstrate substantial gaps in nationality information.
This creates a problem of public accountability. Scotland can publish how many crimes were recorded, where they occurred and how those totals have changed. It cannot provide a reliable national breakdown establishing how much offending involves people holding different immigration statuses. That limitation prevents the public from testing important assertions made during the dispute.
What Has Increased in Scotland?
The Scottish Government’s most recent rolling-year statistics cover the 12 months ending June 2026. In that period Police Scotland recorded 323,531 crimes, compared with 303,343 in the previous rolling year and 285,975 in the year ending June 2022. The latest total represents an increase of 20,188 crimes, or seven per cent, on the preceding year and 13 per cent over four years.
| Year ending | Recorded crimes | Relative scale |
|---|---|---|
| June 2022 | 285,975 | |
| June 2025 | 303,343 | |
| June 2026 | 323,531 |
These are rolling 12-month recorded-crime totals, not the number of unique offenders or criminal convictions. Bars are proportional to the June 2026 total.
Crimes of dishonesty accounted for the largest numerical rise among the principal crime groups, increasing from 112,421 to 123,906. Non-sexual crimes of violence rose from 71,915 to 77,005, while recorded sexual crimes increased from 15,129 to 16,560.
| Crime category | June 2025 | June 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crimes of dishonesty | 112,421 | 123,906 | +10% |
| Non-sexual crimes of violence | 71,915 | 77,005 | +7% |
| Sexual crimes | 15,129 | 16,560 | +9% |
| Crimes against society | See official statistical tables | +5% | |
| Damage and reckless behaviour | See official statistical tables | −2% | |
The annual financial-year publication provides a longer historical perspective. Police Scotland recorded 315,357 crimes in 2025–26, five per cent more than the previous financial year. Nevertheless, that remained 49 per cent below Scotland’s recorded-crime peak in 1991.
Sexual crime follows a different historical pattern. The annual total reached 16,430 in 2025–26, the highest level in the comparable series beginning in 1971. Some offences reported during the year concerned conduct that occurred earlier. The Scottish Government also estimated that cybercrime accounted for at least 27 per cent of recorded sexual crimes.
The distinction between the number of crimes recorded and the underlying incidence of offending is important. Reporting practices, detection, digital offending, changes in legislation and crime-recording procedures may affect the totals. The published figures do not establish one cause for all the increases.
Shoplifting provides a further example. In the annual statistics it increased from 44,730 recorded crimes in 2024–25 to 53,369 in 2025–26, a rise of 19 per cent. The figures establish the recorded increase but not the nationality or immigration status of the people responsible.
Determining why particular offences are increasing requires separate evidence about circumstances, victims, perpetrators and reporting. The national published crime totals do not provide that explanation on their own.
Where Is Crime Increasing?
The geographical distribution of recorded crime varies considerably across Scotland. In 2025–26, Dundee City had the highest overall recorded-crime rate, at 929 crimes per 10,000 residents. Shetland Islands had the lowest, at 203. Scotland’s national rate was 569 per 10,000 residents.
The rolling-year figures to June 2026 showed increased recorded crime in 26 of Scotland’s 32 local authority areas. The national increase was therefore geographically widespread rather than confined to one city or region.
These rates describe where crimes were recorded, not where offenders were born, their nationality or their immigration status. City centres and commercial districts attract commuters and visitors who may not live within the council area. Differences in population density, commercial activity, deprivation, policing and reporting can influence the figures.
It would be unsound to compare the number of asylum seekers housed within a council area with its total recorded crime and assume a causal relationship. That would attribute crimes to a group without establishing who committed them.
A reliable assessment would require individual records, the relevant immigration status at the time of offending, suitable population denominators and consideration of other factors. The published national crime statistics do not supply those elements.
The Missing Nationality Information
Police Scotland introduced its national UNIFI crime-recording system in January 2024. The system includes nationality and ethnicity fields, but their completion is not mandatory in every crime record.
The consequences are documented in the force’s own freedom of information responses.
FOI 25-1795 provided information about detected sexual crimes recorded between 1 January 2024 and 31 May 2025. Police Scotland identified 10,011 accused records associated with those crimes. Of those, 5,440 were classified as having nationality not recorded or not known. British was the largest specified nationality, appearing in 3,722 entries.
Approximately 54 per cent of the accused records in that extract therefore lacked an identifiable nationality. Police Scotland expressly warned that these were provisional management statistics, not a count of unique offenders. An accused person could appear against multiple crimes, and multiple accused people could be associated with one crime.
The force also distinguished between having an entry in a nationality field and having useful nationality information. A field containing not recorded or not known does not establish citizenship merely because the field contains a value.
A second disclosure, FOI 26-1615, concerned detected crimes tagged as child sexual abuse and exploitation. Between January 2024 and June 2026, Police Scotland identified 2,176 accused records. Of those, 1,217, approximately 56 per cent, had no nationality recorded.
Among the 959 entries with nationality information, 632 were classified as British. The remaining entries included other nationalities and separate UK identity classifications. Because more than half the records lacked nationality, the extract cannot reliably establish the overall nationality distribution of the identified accused population.
The absence of a nationality entry does not mean the individual was a foreign national. It does not mean the individual was British. It also does not establish that the information was never obtained by police.
Nationality may have been recorded elsewhere in a case, including custody records. The critical question is whether the information can be retrieved and reconciled where it is needed.
The Disconnected Crime and Custody Records
FOI 26-2612 exposed an additional limitation. Police Scotland was asked whether the 1,217 child sexual abuse and exploitation accused records without nationality could be checked against custody records to determine whether a corresponding record existed and contained nationality information.
In its response dated 7 September 2026, Police Scotland declined the requested exercise because it would exceed the £600 freedom of information cost threshold. The force explained that its UNIFI crime-recording system and custody systems were not linked for the requested comparison and that the records would have to be manually cross-referenced.
That is a significant systems limitation. Information potentially held in one part of Police Scotland’s records could not simply be retrieved automatically from another to complete the requested analysis.
It does not prove that officers cannot obtain an individual custody record during an investigation. Nor does it establish that other procedures for exchanging information are absent. It establishes that the requested national comparison could not be performed without manual work.
At a minimum, this impairs the force’s ability to produce the requested statistics efficiently. Whether it has also affected particular investigations, intelligence assessments or immigration referrals requires additional operational evidence.
Nationality Does Not Establish Immigration Status
Even a complete nationality record would not, by itself, establish whether a person was an asylum seeker, refugee, visa holder, settled resident, overstayer or someone without lawful immigration permission.
These are different legal categories. A foreign national may have lived lawfully in Scotland for decades. An asylum applicant may be awaiting a decision. A recognised refugee may have permission to remain. Others may hold employment, family or student visas.
Police Scotland’s disclosures indicate that immigration or asylum status is not maintained as a routinely searchable field in the national crime-recording system. Relevant information may be contained within individual case narratives, but finding it across large numbers of reports can require manual examination.
That prevents the force from readily producing comprehensive national figures for detected crimes involving asylum seekers as accused people. It also limits the ability to count crimes against asylum seekers where their status is not recorded in a searchable victim field.
Consequently, the available records cannot support confident Scotland-wide claims about the crime rate of asylum seekers or refugees, whether high or low.
Who Is Responsible for Collecting and Sharing the Data?
Policing, most criminal justice functions and prisons are devolved responsibilities in Scotland. Immigration, asylum, citizenship and deportation remain reserved UK matters.
The division means that collecting crime information, retaining police records, maintaining prosecution and custody data, and making immigration decisions are not all the responsibility of one organisation.
| Institution | Collection and responsibility | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Police Scotland | Collects crime reports, evidence and relevant identity information. Can require nationality in specified custody circumstances under section 34 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016. | No general duty identified to establish and code immigration status for every accused person; cannot automatically perform the UNIFI–custody comparison requested in FOI 26-2612. |
| Chief Constable | Responsible for operational policing arrangements and management of Police Scotland’s information systems. | Cannot determine immigration permission, asylum claims or deportation. |
| Scottish Police Authority | Oversees policing and can request statutory reports, statistics and other policing information. | Does not manage Home Office immigration records or direct individual prosecutions. |
| Scottish Government | Responsible for devolved policing and justice policy and Scottish recorded-crime statistical publications. | Cannot independently grant asylum, determine immigration permission or order deportation. |
| Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service | Receives police reports, holds prosecution information and makes independent prosecution decisions. | Does not determine immigration status or deportation. |
| Scottish courts | Determine criminal proceedings, impose lawful sentences and hold judicial records. | A criminal sentence is not itself a Home Office deportation decision. |
| Scottish Prison Service | Maintains relevant prisoner and sentence information and participates in foreign-national-offender referral arrangements. | Does not determine whether deportation is lawful or should proceed. |
| Home Office | Maintains immigration and asylum records, verifies immigration status and exercises reserved immigration-enforcement powers. | Does not control every field in Scotland’s national police crime-recording system or decide Scottish criminal prosecutions. |
The Chief Constable is responsible for Police Scotland’s operational arrangements. The Scottish Police Authority exercises oversight and may require information under section 84 of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012. Scottish Ministers exercise separate statutory functions within the devolved policing framework.
Those powers provide a means of scrutinising the adequacy of policing information. They do not themselves create a specific duty to record asylum status in every crime report.
Scottish Police Have the Legal Power to Obtain Nationality
Section 34 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 requires a person in police custody who has not yet been officially accused to provide specified identifying information when required by a constable. That information includes name, address, date and place of birth, and nationality.
This is a defined legal power. It does not apply universally to everyone mentioned in a crime report, nor does it create an unrestricted power to demand a person’s complete immigration history.
Nevertheless, where nationality has been lawfully obtained, the question arises as to how it is retained and made accessible for legitimate policing purposes. Police Scotland’s use of optional nationality fields within its national crime system therefore warrants scrutiny.
The evidence does not establish that individual officers deliberately refuse to collect nationality or that Police Scotland has acted unlawfully by leaving particular fields incomplete. It establishes that substantial gaps exist in the examined records despite a statutory mechanism for obtaining nationality in specified custody circumstances.
How Immigration Law Has Changed
The law distinguishes unlawful entry, asylum admissibility, entitlement to refugee protection, immigration permission, criminal convictions and deportation. These are separate legal questions, and each has its own statutory conditions and safeguards.
Several important changes have occurred since 2023. Some removed proposed restrictions concerning unlawful arrivals, while others altered the rules relating to foreign criminals.
| Legislation | What changed or what the law provides | Effect on enforcement |
|---|---|---|
| Immigration Act 1971 | Established central powers concerning entry, leave, removal and deportation. | Provides enduring enforcement powers, subject to later legislation and safeguards. |
| Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 | Contains immigration enforcement and information provisions and a defence for qualifying refugees facing specified offences. | Supports enforcement alongside protections arising from refugee law. |
| Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, sections 80B–80C | Provides for qualifying asylum claims connected with safe third countries to be declared inadmissible. | Allows certain claims not to proceed to substantive examination; does not automatically guarantee lawful or practical removal. |
| UK Borders Act 2007 | Established automatic deportation arrangements for qualifying foreign criminals, including a 12-month imprisonment threshold, subject to exceptions. | Strengthened the statutory framework for deportation following specified criminal convictions. |
| Illegal Migration Act 2023 | Created a proposed duty to remove people meeting specified unlawful-arrival conditions, with related restrictions on claims. | Legislated for stricter treatment of qualifying arrivals, but central provisions were not fully operational. |
| Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, section 41 | Repealed substantial provisions of the 2023 Act, including its proposed duty-to-remove arrangements. | Removed that legislative scheme. Existing immigration offences, safe-third-country arrangements and deportation powers remained. |
| Sentencing Act 2026, section 45 | Amended the definition of a period of imprisonment in specified UK deportation legislation to include qualifying suspended sentences. | Expanded specified foreign-criminal deportation provisions, subject to statutory exceptions and commencement rules. Scottish sentencing arrangements require separate consideration. |
The repeal of provisions of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 deserves particular attention. That Act legislated for a duty to remove people meeting specified conditions relating to unlawful entry or arrival, together with restrictions on consideration of certain claims.
Section 41 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 repealed substantial parts of that scheme on 2 December 2025. The central duty-to-remove provisions had not become a fully operational universal removal system. The repeal therefore removed a statutory framework that had not been fully implemented.
The repeal did not abolish the Home Office’s immigration-enforcement powers, the statutory framework for deporting qualifying foreign criminals or the separate safe-third-country inadmissibility provisions.
Under sections 80B and 80C of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, a qualifying asylum claim may be declared inadmissible where the relevant connection with a safe third country is established. Transit through another country may be relevant, but does not automatically establish that every legal condition is satisfied or that removal can take place.
Serious criminality may also affect a person’s entitlement to protection or continued permission to remain. Refugee Convention obligations, human-rights protections and statutory exceptions must be considered. Liability to deportation and actual removal are different matters.
Section 45 of the Sentencing Act 2026 came into force on 22 March 2026. It amended provisions of the UK Borders Act 2007 and the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 so that qualifying suspended sentences of at least 12 months are included in specified foreign-criminal deportation rules. The amendment concerns UK immigration law, although Scottish sentencing arrangements differ from those in England and Wales and the applicable conditions must be considered in individual cases.
The legislative changes therefore cannot be described accurately as making every aspect of immigration enforcement uniformly stronger or weaker. Some proposed asylum restrictions were repealed, while certain deportation-related provisions were expanded. The existence of statutory powers must also be distinguished from evidence of their effectiveness in practice.
Where the Enforcement Chain Becomes Vulnerable
Immigration enforcement depends upon the collection, verification and lawful exchange of information between different organisations. Police Scotland may obtain identity information during an investigation or custody. Prosecutors and courts hold information about charges, proceedings and outcomes. Prison authorities hold information about those in custody. The Home Office maintains immigration records and determines immigration status and enforcement decisions.
There are established procedures for passing information between these agencies. Home Office guidance identifies police forces, courts, prison services and other agencies as sources of foreign-national-offender referrals. It states that foreign nationals receiving custodial sentences are referred by the relevant prison service for deportation consideration.
The Scottish Prison Service therefore provides a referral route separate from the national police crime-statistics system. A missing nationality field in UNIFI does not establish that a person sentenced to imprisonment escapes Home Office scrutiny.
However, the existence of a referral procedure does not by itself demonstrate that every eligible case has been identified, referred promptly or processed correctly. That question requires referral records and audit evidence.
The documented limitation between UNIFI and custody information raises a related concern. Where information exists in one system but cannot be retrieved automatically through another, additional manual checks may be needed. The result can be duplicated work, slower analysis and difficulty establishing whether records are complete.
If relevant information is not shared when legally required and operationally necessary, decisions may be delayed or opportunities for verification may be missed. These are foreseeable risks of incomplete or disconnected information, not proof that a particular offender has escaped immigration enforcement.
The available Police Scotland FOI responses do not establish how often immigration status is verified directly with the Home Office in individual investigations. They also do not quantify any missed foreign-national-offender referrals, delayed deportation decisions or failures to remove people because of the UNIFI arrangement.
Those are specific questions that require information from Police Scotland, the Scottish Prison Service and the Home Office.
Why Information Sharing Matters
Criminal-justice information serves different purposes at different stages. Police use it to investigate offences, identify suspects and detect patterns. Prosecutors assess evidence and decide whether proceedings should be brought. Courts determine guilt and impose lawful sentences. Prison services manage custody and sentence records. The Home Office considers identity, immigration status and criminality when making immigration decisions.
Inaccurate or incomplete information can make those processes more difficult. Details may have to be obtained again, identities reconciled and records checked manually. Where information is held in separate systems, agencies need reliable procedures to retrieve and share it lawfully when required.
For immigration enforcement, nationality alone is insufficient. Authorities must establish the person’s actual legal status and consider whether the relevant statutory grounds for refusal, cancellation, removal or deportation exist.
The importance of these distinctions extends beyond immigration. Incomplete records may also obstruct the identification of offending patterns or the ability to measure crimes against particular groups. Police Scotland’s disclosed limitations affect its capacity to produce national analyses involving asylum seekers as victims as well as accused people.
Any improvement in information collection and sharing would need to operate within applicable data-protection, policing and human-rights law. A more complete statistical record is not, by itself, a justification for indiscriminate collection or disclosure of sensitive personal information.
Child Sexual Exploitation and the Absence of Group-Based Data
The child sexual abuse and exploitation disclosures reveal another limitation in Police Scotland’s national information system. Although UNIFI includes a Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation marker, the force has confirmed that it does not provide a routinely searchable marker specifically identifying group-based or gang-based child sexual exploitation.
Individual cases must therefore be examined to determine whether they involved multiple perpetrators and whether they meet the definition being investigated.
The absence of a searchable marker does not establish that group-based exploitation is absent in Scotland. Nor do incomplete nationality figures establish which ethnic, nationality or immigration groups are responsible for such offending.
The Scottish Government announced a statutory public inquiry into Scotland’s response to group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation, chaired by Professor Alexis Jay. Police Scotland has also reviewed specified historical cases involving children and multiple suspects where previous decisions resulted in no further action.
Petitions PE2208 and PE2247 to the Scottish Parliament have sought fuller recording and publication of demographic information relating to child sexual offending. They demonstrate that deficiencies in available statistics have received parliamentary attention, but they do not establish the correctness of claims about particular groups.
The central evidential distinction remains important: individual sexual offending, group-based exploitation, nationality, ethnicity and immigration status are separate characteristics. They cannot be combined into a single national conclusion without reliable supporting records.
The Cost of Not Knowing
Scotland’s recorded-crime statistics inform public debate, parliamentary scrutiny, policing priorities and government assessments of public safety. Their limitations become particularly consequential when crime is invoked in disputes concerning immigration and asylum accommodation.
The official figures can establish that recorded crime is increasing, but they cannot establish how much of that increase is attributable to Scottish nationals, other British nationals or people holding different immigration statuses. Even among detected crimes, nationality information is incomplete in substantial numbers of examined records.
Without reliable data, opposing claims may remain difficult to verify. A reader may assume rising crime reflects offending within Scotland’s established population. Another may assume the increase is caused by immigration. The published national totals support neither conclusion.
The scale of public protest demonstrates that the dispute has substantial consequences for communities and policing resources. Police Scotland has described significant demands on officers, the cancellation of rest days and the need to manage demonstrations and counter-demonstrations while distinguishing peaceful protest from criminal conduct.
The missing statistics have not been demonstrated to be the cause of that unrest. They do, however, leave important factual questions unresolved at a time when those questions are being contested publicly.
A reliable information system would not eliminate political disagreement. It could allow particular statistical claims to be tested, permit more informed scrutiny and establish whether certain patterns exist or do not exist. Scotland’s current national crime records cannot provide all of that evidence.
Who Must Answer for the Recording Arrangements?
The responsibility for Police Scotland’s crime-recording arrangements lies within Scotland’s devolved policing framework. The Chief Constable has operational responsibility, the Scottish Police Authority exercises oversight, and the Scottish Government is responsible for relevant devolved policing and justice policy.
The Home Office has separate responsibility for immigration records, asylum decisions and immigration enforcement. The Scottish Prison Service and other criminal-justice agencies have roles in maintaining and passing relevant information.
The available disclosures do not establish who approved every aspect of UNIFI’s nationality-recording arrangements, why the fields were not made mandatory in every case, or whether assessments considered the consequences of missing information and limited interoperability.
Those decisions should be capable of explanation. Police Scotland can be asked what standards govern nationality recording, when immigration checks are required, what integration plans exist and how information obtained in custody is reconciled with crime records.
The Scottish Police Authority can be asked whether it has scrutinised the completeness of those records and the consequences for public statistics and operational intelligence. The Scottish Government can be asked whether the existing arrangements satisfy its expectations for national crime information.
The Home Office and Scottish Prison Service can be asked whether audits have identified missed, delayed or incomplete foreign-national-offender referrals and how they ensure the completeness of information required for immigration decisions.
The existence of missing fields does not establish that those failures occurred. It does justify asking whether the agencies responsible can demonstrate that their procedures are sufficient.
What Scotland Can Establish and What It Cannot
The evidence establishes that Scotland’s recorded crime has risen, that the increase extends across several major offence categories and most council areas, and that policing protests over immigration and asylum accommodation has placed additional demands upon Police Scotland.
It also establishes that substantial numbers of accused records in examined Police Scotland datasets lack nationality information. Immigration status is not routinely available as a structured searchable field in the national crime-recording system, and Police Scotland has confirmed that the requested cross-referencing between UNIFI and custody records would require manual examination.
Scottish law permits police to require nationality in specified custody circumstances. UK immigration law provides separate powers governing asylum inadmissibility, immigration offences, removal and deportation. Those powers operate through different institutions and legal procedures.
The evidence does not establish that incomplete national crime data has caused the protests, that officers have unlawfully refused to collect nationality, or that particular offenders have escaped immigration enforcement because of the recording arrangements. Such conclusions require additional proof.
The central public-accountability issue is nonetheless clear. Scotland can report the number, location and classification of recorded crimes, but cannot reliably establish from its national crime records how identified offending is distributed between people holding different immigration statuses.
At a time when immigration and crime are subjects of sustained public dispute, that limitation leaves questions which neither side can settle through the published figures. Whether the information deficiencies also have demonstrable operational consequences is a matter for the responsible institutions to explain through their policies, procedures and audit records.
Sources and Primary Evidence
Police Scotland: National Crime Recording and Missing Information
FOI 25-1795 — Crime Statistics and Related Policy: Recording Nationality of Sexual Offenders. Police Scotland, 6 January 2026. Includes tables showing recorded and detected crime, nationality and ethnicity completion, and nationality breakdowns for detected sexual crimes from January 2024 to May 2025. Original disclosure and Word document.
FOI 26-1615 — Child Sexual Exploitation/Grooming: Nationality, Ethnicity and Asylum Status of Accused Persons, 2024 Onwards. Police Scotland, 15 July 2026. Establishes the national CSAE-tagged accused-record extract and the substantial number without nationality recorded. Original disclosure.
FOI 26-2612 — Child Sexual Exploitation/Grooming: Nationality, Ethnicity and Asylum Status, 2024 Onwards. Police Scotland, 7 September 2026. Confirms the cost and manual cross-referencing limitations arising from UNIFI and custody systems not being linked for the requested comparison. Original disclosure.
FOI 26-1309 — Sexual Crime Statistics by Offence Type and Nationality. Police Scotland, 8 July 2026. Covering response identified; the separate Tables 1–3 attachment remains outstanding from the research collection. Original disclosure page.
FOI 25-1494 — Earlier Nationality and Ethnicity Recording Request. Police Scotland, 2025. Identified in FOI 25-1795 as the preceding request. The original response and attachments have not yet been obtained or independently verified.
Police Scotland: Sexual Crime, Nationality and Local Comparisons
FOI 25-3132 — Sexual Crimes: Accused Ethnicity and Asylum-Seeker Status, Five-Year Period. Police Scotland. Supplementary disclosure covering the availability of demographic and asylum-status information.
FOI 25-3253 — Sexual Crimes: Ethnicity and Asylum-Seeker Status in Falkirk and Aberdeen. Police Scotland. Geographically focused disclosure covering a five-year period.
FOI 25-1883 — Child Sexual Abuse by Ethnicity and Nationality. Police Scotland. Supplementary disclosure concerning demographic information in child sexual abuse records.
FOI 25-1871 — Child Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Offences Against Children Involving Multiple Suspects. Police Scotland. Addresses ethnicity data and offences involving multiple accused people.
FOI 25-2308 — Violent and Sexual Offending by Nationality, 2018–2024. Police Scotland. Historical nationality-data request.
FOI 25-1927 — Violent and Sexual Offending by Nationality, 2018–2024. Police Scotland. Related historical disclosure retained for comparison with FOI 25-2308.
FOI 25-0312 — Sexual Crime and Nationality of Perpetrators, 2024 Onwards. Police Scotland. Earlier nationality-recording disclosure relating to the introduction of UNIFI.
FOI 26-0040 — Rape and Sexual Crime: Accused Nationality, Greater Glasgow, 2025. Police Scotland. Local extract concerning recorded nationality information for detected rape and attempted-rape crimes.
FOI 26-0029 — How Sex, Ethnicity, Religion and Nationality Are Recorded in Child Sexual Abuse Cases. Police Scotland. Recording methodology and available demographic fields.
FOI 25-3333 — Violent and Sexual Crime: Ethnicity, Asylum and Refugee Status, Falkirk, 2023. Police Scotland, 22 January 2026. Contains the local manual-review evidence used to distinguish absence of recorded immigration-status references from confirmation of an individual’s status. Original disclosure.
Police Scotland: Immigration, Asylum Accommodation and Public Safety
FOI 25-2763 — Crime Involving Refugees and Asylum Seekers; Policing Costs and Resources. Police Scotland. Supplementary disclosure relating to crime recording and policing resource questions.
FOI 25-3277 — Immigration Offences, Right-to-Work Checks and Crimes Involving Asylum-Seeker Victims. Police Scotland. Relevant to information-sharing and the recording of offences against asylum seekers.
FOI 25-2135 — Home Office Asylum Accommodation and Accused Asylum-Seeker Status, 2023 Onwards. Police Scotland. Relevant to determining what can be established from accommodation and crime records.
FOI 25-3366 — Racially Motivated Crime Where the Victim Was an Asylum Seeker. Police Scotland. Examines the availability of victim immigration-status information.
FOI 26-0683 — Accused Immigration Status, Westhill/Aberdeenshire. Police Scotland. Local disclosure relevant to the availability of immigration-status information.
FOI 25-2324 — Foreign-National Suspects, Sexual Crime, Gangs, Knives and Child Sexual Exploitation Complaints. Police Scotland. Broader request relevant to crime classifications and recording limitations.
Police Scotland: Organised Child Sexual Exploitation
FOI 26-0619 — Child Abuse and Sexual Exploitation: Pakistani and Asylum-Seeker Grooming Gangs; Policies, Guidance, Investigations, Intelligence and Correspondence. Police Scotland, 13 April 2026. Relevant to whether Police Scotland holds specified policies, intelligence material and searchable group-based child sexual exploitation records. Original disclosure.
Police Scotland: Additional Identified Disclosures
FOI 26-1120. Police Scotland. Original document identified in the wider research collection. Its relevance and exact subject require final document-level verification before being represented as supporting a published claim.
FOI 26-1691. Police Scotland. Original document identified in the wider research collection. Its relevance and exact subject require final document-level verification before being represented as supporting a published claim.
Scottish Crime Statistics and Recording Standards
Recorded Crime in Scotland: Year Ending June 2026. Scottish Government, 25 August 2026. National recorded-crime totals, offence groups and local-authority comparisons. Full publication.
Recorded Crime in Scotland: Year Ending June 2026 — Main Findings. Scottish Government, 25 August 2026. Official findings and figures.
Recorded Crime in Scotland: Year Ending June 2026 — Supporting Documents. Scottish Government, 25 August 2026. Includes the statistical bulletin and downloadable Excel tables. Supporting statistical files.
Recorded Crime in Scotland: Year Ending June 2026 — Data and Methodology. Scottish Government, 25 August 2026. Statistical methodology.
Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2025–26. Scottish Government, 23 June 2026. Annual crime statistics, detection information and longer historical comparisons. Full publication.
Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2025–26 — Total Recorded Crime. Scottish Government, 23 June 2026. Long-term comparisons, overall crime rates and local-authority figures. Official analysis.
Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2025–26 — Police Recorded Cyber-Crime. Scottish Government, 23 June 2026. Cybercrime methodology and analysis.
Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2025–26 — Data and Methodology. Scottish Government, 23 June 2026. Official methodology.
Scottish Crime Recording Standard: Crime Recording and Counting Rules 2026–2027. Scottish Government, 14 August 2026. National rules governing the recording and counting of crimes and offences. Full standard.
Scottish Crime Recording Standard — Part One. Scottish Government, 14 August 2026. Includes responsibility for compliance and the purpose of crime recording. Crime-recording responsibilities.
Scottish Crime Recording Standard — Detections. Scottish Government, 14 August 2026. Defines the criteria for a detected or cleared-up crime. Definition and rules.
Immigration Protests and Public Order
Policing Events — Report to the Scottish Police Authority Board, 30 July 2026. Police Scotland / Scottish Police Authority, published 29 July 2026. Primary evidence for the 144 anti-immigration protests, 83 counter-protests, Falkirk concentration, 2,888 cancelled rest days and approximately £1.1 million in overtime and associated allowances. Original report and supporting PDF.
Meeting of the Scottish Police Authority, 30 July 2026. Scottish Police Authority. Includes the meeting agenda and consideration of the policing-events report. Official meeting record.
Scottish Policing and Criminal-Justice Legislation
Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012, Section 84. Scottish Parliament, 2012. Statutory provisions governing the provision of reports, statistics and other information. Legislation.
Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016, Section 34. Scottish Parliament, 2016. Specified identifying information that may be required from a person in police custody who has not yet been officially accused, including nationality. Legislation.
Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, Sections 1 and 12. Scottish Parliament, 2002. Public authority information rights and the excessive-cost provisions relevant to Police Scotland’s FOI refusals. Legislation.
UK Immigration, Asylum and Deportation Legislation
Immigration Act 1971. UK Parliament, 1971. Core statutory framework for immigration control, entry, leave, removal and deportation. Legislation.
Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. UK Parliament, 1999. Asylum and immigration enforcement provisions, including section 31 protection for qualifying refugees facing specified offences. Legislation.
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, Section 80B. UK Parliament, 2002. Asylum inadmissibility provisions involving connections with safe third countries. Legislation.
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, Section 80C. UK Parliament, 2002. Statutory conditions concerning a person’s connection to a safe third state. Legislation.
UK Borders Act 2007, Section 32. UK Parliament, 2007. Statutory framework for automatic deportation of qualifying foreign criminals. Legislation.
Illegal Migration Act 2023. UK Parliament, 2023. Statutory scheme concerning specified unlawful arrivals and proposed removal duties. Legislation.
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, Section 41. UK Parliament, 2025. Repeal of substantial provisions of the Illegal Migration Act 2023. Legislation.
Sentencing Act 2026, Section 45. UK Parliament, 2026. Amendments affecting statutory foreign-criminal deportation provisions. Legislation.
Sentencing Act 2026 — Explanatory Notes. UK Parliament, 2026. Explanation of the Act’s foreign-criminal provisions and application. Official explanatory notes.
Home Office Enforcement Guidance
Deportation on Conducive Grounds: Immigration Act 1971 and UK Borders Act 2007. Home Office, updated 2026. Includes Foreign National Offender Returns Command referral procedures, the role of the Scottish Prison Service and deportation consideration. Home Office guidance.
Outstanding Primary Evidence
FOI 26-1309 — Missing Statistical Tables. Police Scotland. The separate Tables 1–3 referred to in the covering response have not been recovered from the published disclosure material examined.
FOI 25-1494 — Original Response and Attachments. Police Scotland. Referenced by FOI 25-1795, but the original response and attachments remain outstanding.
These outstanding documents have not been used to substantiate numerical conclusions without the original records. Copies can be requested from Police Scotland at foi@scotland.police.uk.
