Connecting Society: How everyday data can shape our lives

In the 1980 and 90s, Glasgow was notorious for a knife crime and had a high rate of homicide – which, in 2005, resulted in the World Health Organization dubbing Glasgow the “murder capital of Europe.”

In this second episode of our podcast pilot, Mr Alastair McAlpine discusses with
Professor Susan McVie how Glasgow has seen a 60% drop in homicide, and violent crime in Scotland has fallen to historic lows over the last two decades, and asks whether she believes that 'this was a miracle' or whether there were other reasons.

In this episode, Susan discusses:

• The development of the Violence Reduction Unit’s approach to dealing with violence as a public health issue and how that shifted from Enforcement to Empowerment
• How reductions in youth crime and changes in the social behaviours of children, including their use of technology, may have shaped patterns of violence
• The potential impact of the Scottish Government’s development of 'Getting it right for every child' focused on child wellbeing and the development of a whole systems approach for dealing with young people who offend
• The value of administrative research data in studying violence, including how using ambulance, hospital and A&E data is helping to show the relationship between levels of repeat violence, deprivation and alcohol availability in Scottish communities
• And the valuable contribution of linking police and health data in understanding patterns of compliance during the pandemic in Scotland.

You may wish to refer to the following documents after listening to the podcast, which demonstrate the value of researchers having secure access to datasets from Police Scotland, Hospital A&E, Census 2011 or Ambulance Service.
Violence and vulnerability
Covid19 - Policing the Pandemic

Professor Susan McVie has recently joined a European research group on crime register data, who hope to expand and formalise into a more formal group of the European Society of Criminology. It is hoped that future funding will allow joint research.

Connecting Society is brought to you by ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK). Find out more about ADR UK on our website, or follow us on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn. This podcast builds on a pilot series known as DataPod, produced by ADR Scotland.