The recent report to the Scottish Police Authority’s Policing Performance Committee provides an extensive update on the national implementation of the “Proportionate Response to Crime” (PRTC) initiative across Scotland. This nationwide policy change represents a significant shift in how Police Scotland handles crimes with low associated threat, harm, risk, or vulnerability. The report indicates that since implementation, over 12,000 crime reports have been directly filed without officer attendance, freeing up an estimated 63,583 frontline police hours. While public satisfaction metrics remain stable, the report reveals mixed levels of public understanding about the process and contains significant gaps regarding equality impact assessment. PRTC appears to be achieving its resource management objectives, but questions remain about public communication, equitable implementation, and comprehensive evaluation mechanisms.
Background and Implementation Timeline
Origins of the Initiative
The Proportionate Response to Crime process began as a pilot programme in Police Scotland’s North East Division between September and November 2023. Following evaluation, the Force Executive approved a national rollout, which was subsequently discussed at the Scottish Police Authority Board Meeting in March 2024. This strategic initiative builds upon existing resource management protocols within Police Scotland, moving assessment of investigative opportunities to an earlier stage in the crime reporting process.
Phased National Implementation
The report documents a carefully managed phased rollout strategy across Scotland’s policing divisions. North Command areas implemented PRTC from 1 May 2024, followed by East Command on 27 May 2024, and finally West Command on 24 June 2024. This sequential approach allowed Police Scotland to monitor implementation challenges and adjust processes before complete nationwide coverage. The gradual expansion demonstrates a methodical approach to significant operational change, enabling the organisation to build upon lessons learned during the initial pilot phase.
Operational Mechanics and Impact
How PRTC Works in Practice
The report emphasises that PRTC is not a “policy of non-investigation” but rather an enhancement of existing assessment protocols. When incidents are reported to Police Scotland, they undergo a THRIVE assessment (Threat, Harm, Risk, Investigative opportunity, Vulnerability and Engagement), with police always attending when vulnerability is identified. Under the Contact Assessment Model, crimes with low associated risk factors can be recorded remotely via telephone through Direct Crime Recording (DCR). What PRTC adds is an additional structured assessment by resolution team officers to determine whether proportionate investigative opportunities exist; if none are identified, the crime report is recommended for direct filing rather than allocation to frontline officers.
Resource Impact and Capacity Release
Since implementation, 12,017 DCR crime reports have been directly filed through the PRTC process, representing 3.1% of all crime reports recorded by Police Scotland during the same period. The direct filing rates vary significantly across divisions, ranging from 1.0% to 4.3%. Police Scotland calculates that this approach has freed up approximately 63,583 frontline police officer hours, with each directly filed report saving about 5 hours of investigation time. Projections suggest that over a 12-month period, 16,962 DCR crime reports will be directly filed, potentially freeing up 89,730 frontline police officer hours.
Limitations in Resource Tracking
Despite the quantifiable time savings, the report acknowledges significant limitations in tracking how this additional capacity has been utilised in practice. The current local policing model “rarely provides front-line response and community officers with dedicated/planned ‘enquiry time’”. Officers are expected to investigate crimes during the course of their everyday duties, such as responding to ongoing incidents, making it “extremely difficult to fully articulate how that additional capacity has been used”. This acknowledgement raises questions about whether the freed-up time translates to measurable improvements in other areas of policing service delivery.
Public Perception and Understanding
Survey Response and Methodology Limitations
To evaluate public reaction, Police Scotland distributed 1,301 bespoke surveys to members of the public whose crime reports were recommended for direct filing through PRTC. The report notes that only 64 responses were received, representing a 4.91% response rate. The extraordinarily low response rate presents significant methodological challenges for drawing meaningful conclusions about public perception. While the report suggests this low rate “may infer that users do not have a problem or complaint with the PRTC process,” this interpretation lacks substantive evidence and fails to consider alternative explanations such as disengagement or resignation.
Public Awareness and Comprehension
The survey results reveal gaps in public awareness and understanding of the PRTC process. Most respondents indicated they were not aware of the PRTC process before contacting Police Scotland. When asked about their understanding of what constitutes “no proportionate lines of enquiry,” responses were mixed, with a significant proportion indicating they did not fully comprehend this critical concept. This suggests potential issues with public communication regarding the criteria used to determine which crimes receive full investigation versus direct filing.
General Satisfaction Metrics
Despite these concerns, the report indicates that general user satisfaction data shows no significant decline following PRTC implementation. User Experience Survey results comparing May and October 2024 with the same period in 2023 show overall satisfaction rates remaining stable or slightly improving. Similarly, the Your Police survey data from North East Division (which has the longest implementation period) shows public confidence levels either comparable to or slightly above national averages. However, the report provides a limited analysis of whether these metrics adequately capture public sentiment regarding the specific issue of direct filing of crime reports.
Institutional Implications and Concerns
Acknowledged Risks
The report identifies several implications of the PRTC approach that warrant careful consideration. It explicitly acknowledges reputational risk “in terms of how the new PRTC process is implemented, managed, and perceived by the public”. The document notes that “public trust and confidence in policing is of critical importance to our legitimacy,” indicating awareness of the potential sensitivity of this operational change. The report mentions that Police Scotland is “acutely aware of the reporting on the North East pilot and the decision to roll out the process nationally” and “the impact such reporting may have had on both local communities and people right across the country”.
Communication Strategy and Transparency
To address potential concerns, the report indicates that “a detailed communications plan was developed, and engagement took place with a wide range of key stakeholders and local elected representatives”. It states that through the external communication plan, Police Scotland aims to “remain open and transparent with people contacting the police”. However, the survey results suggesting limited public understanding of the process raise questions about the effectiveness of these communication efforts in practice.
Race-Related Considerations and Equality Implications
Absence of Equality Analysis
Perhaps the most significant deficiency in the report is its treatment of equality implications. Section 10.1 consists of a single sentence: “There are no equality implications in this report”. This dismissive statement is provided without any supporting evidence, analysis, or justification. The absence of equality impact assessment is particularly concerning given the potential for differential outcomes across different communities. The report provides no data or analysis examining whether the PRTC approach affects different racial or ethnic groups equitably.
Lack of Demographic Monitoring
The report contains no breakdown of the demographic characteristics of those whose crime reports are directly filed versus those allocated to officers for investigation. Without this data, it is impossible to assess whether the THRIVE assessment and PRTC processes operate equitably across racial and ethnic groups. This represents a significant oversight in the evaluation approach and raises questions about compliance with public sector equality duties, which require public authorities to have due regard to eliminating discrimination and advancing equality of opportunity.
Potential for Disproportionate Impact
The decision about which crime reports have “no proportionate lines of enquiry” could potentially be influenced by conscious or unconscious biases if robust safeguards are not in place. Certain communities might be disproportionately affected by the direct filing approach if their reports are systematically assessed differently. The report’s failure to address these possibilities through data collection, analysis, and monitoring represents a substantial gap that should be addressed in future evaluations of the PRTC initiative.
Problematic Aspects of the Report
Methodological Limitations
The extremely low survey response rate (4.91%) undermines the reliability of the user feedback data presented in the report. Despite this significant limitation, the report draws conclusions about public perception without adequately acknowledging the potential sampling bias. The positive interpretation of low response rates lacks methodological rigor and alternative explanations should have been considered.
Insufficient Data Granularity
There is no breakdown of crime types being directly filed, which would help identify patterns or potential areas of concern. Without this level of analysis, it is difficult to determine whether certain categories of crime are disproportionately subject to direct filing and what implications this might have for victims and communities. The report provides division-level data on direct filing rates but lacks the analytical depth to fully understand implementation variations.
Limited Outcome Measurement
While user satisfaction is tracked, there is no analysis of potential impacts on crime resolution rates or longer-term public confidence metrics. The focus on process metrics (number of reports directly filed, hours saved) rather than outcome metrics (case resolution, victim satisfaction with outcomes) presents an incomplete picture of the initiative’s effectiveness. The report lacks a comprehensive framework for measuring the success of PRTC beyond resource efficiency.
Fundamentally Different Theoretical Foundations (Comparative Analysis)
A comparative analysis is crucial in understanding various policing strategies, particularly when evaluating the effectiveness of visible policing in relation to the broken windows theory.
Broken Windows: A Causal Theory of Crime
In stark contrast, the Broken Windows theory, developed by Wilson and Kelling in 1982, proposes a causal relationship between disorder and serious crime. This theory “links disorder and incivility within a community to subsequent occurrences of serious crime”. It suggests that visible signs of minor disorder (such as broken windows, graffiti, or public drinking) signal that an area lacks social control, thereby inviting more serious criminal activity. The theory posits that “minor physical and social disorder, if left unattended in a neighbourhood, causes serious crime”.
Broken Windows: Proactive Enforcement
The Broken Windows model advocates for highly visible, proactive policing targeting minor infractions. As implemented in New York City under William Bratton, it involved “cracking down on panhandling, disorderly behaviour, public drinking, street prostitution, and unsolicited windshield washing”. This approach emphasises the importance of police presence and enforcement against minor crimes as a deterrent to more serious offending.
Broken Windows: Intensive Resource Investment in Minor Offences
Broken Windows policing typically requires significant resource investment in addressing minor infractions. Under this model, police departments allocate substantial resources to tackling minor disorders with the expectation that this prevents more serious crime. As Stephen Black notes in his analysis of New York City’s approach, “when, for example, a car full of criminals with existing warrants is stopped for a minor traffic violation, the arresting officers know immediately that the occupants are dangerous and should be arrested”.
Broken Windows: Overpolicing and Causal Questions
The Broken Windows approach has faced substantial criticism regarding both implementation and theory. Critics highlight issues of racial bias in enforcement, with the approach being “called the ‘harassment model of policing’” (Linked here). More fundamentally, researchers question the causal mechanism, with Sampson and Raudenbush arguing that “the premise on which the theory operates, that social disorder and crime are connected as part of a causal chain, is faulty”. (Linked here)
Reflection
Police Scotland’s Proportionate Response to Crime and the Broken Windows theory represent fundamentally different approaches to policing. PRTC exemplifies a pragmatic, resource-focused strategy that aims to optimise police deployment by early identification of cases lacking investigative opportunities. The Broken Windows theory, conversely, advocates for intensive policing of minor disorders based on a theoretical causal link to serious crime.
The PRTC approach appears more aligned with contemporary resource constraints in policing, while avoiding some of the controversial aspects of Broken Windows enforcement. However, to maintain legitimacy, Police Scotland should address the notable gap in equality analysis within their evaluation framework. Future iterations of the PRTC initiative would benefit from comprehensive demographic monitoring to ensure equitable implementation across communities.
The comparison highlights a broader tension in policing between resource optimisation and theoretical approaches to crime reduction. While both have merits, the evidence suggests that careful, context-specific adaptation rather than wholesale adoption of either approach may be most appropriate for addressing local policing challenges.
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