Incidents of murder, attempted murder and culpable homicide down across Lanarkshire

The figures from Police Scotland are taken from the last year.

Incidents of murder, attempted murder and culpable homicide are all down across Lanarkshire in the last year.

More than £7.2m worth of drugs has also been removed from Lanarkshire’s streets with cash and criminal assets worth over £930,000 seized by police in targeted operations.

Police Scotland will present its Performance Report, introduced by Deputy Chief Constable Fiona Taylor, and Quarter 4 Management Information at the Scottish Police Authority’s Policing Performance Committee on Thursday, May 28.

The figures also show that more than 100 domestic abuse offences were recorded in the county since new domestic abuse legislation came into force on April 1, 2019.

The Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 created a single offence covering the full range of abusive behaviours including physical, psychological, financial and sexual abuse.

A total of 108 offences were recorded in Lanarkshire under the new Act while the force-wide figures reveal that 1681 offences were recorded in the same period.

A total of 1158 offences were detected in the same year.

Chief Superintendent Alan Waddell, divisional commander of Lanarkshire, said: “Any drop in crime is welcome news for our communities and I want to assure them of my commitment to continue that decline.

“Police Scotland officers are working incredibly hard across Lanarkshire, engaging with our residents and building their confidence in coming forward to report crime.

"Indeed, I believe that that level of engagement is responsible for our increase in detections which, for this year alone for total crime, is up by more than 1000.

“This is also why we were able to prevent more than £7m worth of drugs from flooding into our communities, ruining lives and bringing misery to countless others’.

“Officers are fully supported by our national and specialist units tackling drugs and domestic abuse so we really do have the best of local and the strength of national.

“DCC Taylor said today that if you need police assistance, support or intervention, contact us and we will help.

"I would like to reiterate that message to Lanarkshire’s communities and ask that they continue to engage with us to help improve their safety and wellbeing.”