Professor Susan McVie features in BBC Panorama programme
Mon 20 July 2020
Professor Susan McVie, Director of the Understanding Inequalities project has featured in a recent episode of the well known BBC Panaorama series. Prof McVie appears in the episode on ‘How Scotland Cut Violent Crime’ with Kate Silverton and Police Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit which aired on Monday 13th July.
The programme investigates how Scotland managed to dramatically reduce the level of violent crime through its public health approach to policing and considers whether this model could be adopted in other parts of the UK.
The public health approach
Police Scotland’s Violent Reduction Unit (VRU) tries to prevent violence by treating offenders with compassion and offering them more support. Since its introduction 14 years ago, homicide rates have fallen by 2/3rds in Glasgow, from 39 in a year to 11.
Although violent crime has fallen significantly, Prof McVie points out that the rate of violence started at a much higher point in Scotland compared to other countries, so the main outcome of the violence reduction is that Scotland is now more comparable to other countries.
“Scotland still has a higher assault rate than England and Wales so we haven’t cracked the violence problem.”
– Professor Susan McVie
Different cities have different challenges
The programme looks at whether Scotland’s success can be replicated across the UK, with several police forces in England and Wales setting up their own VRUs.
Susan highlights that the public health approach to reducing violence was based on a strong understanding of what the problems were in Scotland and therefore other jurisdictions may not necessarily achieve the same level of success.
“I don’t think it’s the right thing to say that you can take a model from another jurisdiction and just apply it anywhere else.”
– Professor Susan McVie
Watch the programme
The full episode ‘How Scotland Cut Violent Crime’ that aired on 13th July 2020 is available on BBC iPlayer: