Imagine if law and disorder was so severe that buses wouldn’t go to parts of the city past 8pm at night.
Picture gang violence so prevalent that you dare not stray into certain areas for fear of almost certain trouble.
That’s how it was in parts of Dundee back in 1972 when night-time curfews were imposed on routes to Downfield, Douglas, Kirkton and Fintry at the weekends in an effort to reduce violence against passengers and crews.
Reading the report from our Nostalgia team this week on how Dundee’s teen gangs put the brakes on the city’s bus fleet 50 years ago puts today’s challenges in context.
Back then, bricks, fireworks and even guns were used in their reign of terror.
So what if we don’t have it so bad today after all?
It’s easy in an age of 24-hour news to feel as though things are getting worse.
Crime is no longer swept under the carpet and it’s more widely reported to police – as it should be.
But just reflect back 50 years, or even more recently to the early 2000s when violent crime, and knife crime in particular, was spiralling out of control in parts of Scotland, and a different picture emerges.
Back in 2005 the chief constable of the then Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary dismissed the idea that Scotland was safer in the past, instead arguing: “I think Scotland is a less violent society than it was 50 years ago.
“A lot of fear lies behind violent crime,” he went on.
“People say they fear violent crime, but in fact it is the crime that is least likely to happen to them.”
No more turning a blind eye
The reality was that the methods for recording crime had changed since the 70s, driving up the number of reported incidents.
It’s the same today. For all kinds of crimes.
When we look at domestic violence, there has been a surge in reported cases in recent years.
According to the most recent figures, there were 65,251 incidents in the last year, a rise of 4% on the previous 12 months and the fifth year in a row when an increase was recorded by Police Scotland.
But we would be wrong to think there is more violence happening within homes in 2022 than there was 50 years ago.
In her report, ‘Domestic abuse, culture and Scottish history‘, Dr Anni Donaldson, a research fellow with the University of Strathclyde, cites an environment in which “a blind eye was turned to wife beating”.
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Interventions were focused on containing the situation rather than arresting abusers and holding them to account.
Today we live in a zero-tolerance society that wants to explore every route to tackling violence of all kinds.
It is of course easier said than done.
But the fact that more and more women and victims of violent crime in general are coming forward to report offences – and that their complaints are being taken seriously – is a major step forward towards creating a safer society.
National breakthrough, local setback
In September last year it was revealed the total number of crimes recorded by Police Scotland in the past 12 months was 246,511 – among the lowest levels since 1974.
And remember, recording methods have changed considerably since the 70s. So many more incidents are being recorded as crimes in today’s Scotland.
The statistics weren’t all positive though.
Dundee was the outlier with recorded crime increasing by 4% in the last decade, while overall Scotland’s crime rates fell by 22%.
Offences relating to drug supply, offensive weapons and serious and organised crime were said to be fueling the rise.
Since then Police Scotland say in-roads are being made in tackling high-level organised criminals and that this is already driving the numbers down.
We know and expect better now
The city’s drug problem continues to cause alarm and concern in equal measure with growing frustration over the pace of change.
But where a light shines, the path to progress is illuminated.
We’ve moved on from being a society that turns a blind eye.
Our problems are plain for all to see and that should give us cause for hope.
We may look back with nostalgia at those days before technology took hold, when front doors were left unlocked and neighbours regularly checked in on one another.
But scratch beneath the surface and we find a society in which people did look the other way.
They were days in which ignorance and intolerance were able to thrive.
We know better now.
And that’s why, though it doesn’t always seem like it at first glance, we do live in a better world.
Conversation