A combination of social factors has led to a steady fall in the murder rate across Tayside and Fife.
That’s the view of a Dundee criminologist as the city marked two years this week since its last killing the longest break for decades.
Only two years ago, the City of Discovery was branded “Scotland’s murder capital” after figures showed that six of the 63 killings committed in Scotland that year occurred in Dundee.
Since then, though, only one murder has been recorded in the city and that means Dundee is going through one of its quietest periods for the crime in living memory.
It is a trend that seems to have been replicated across the country, with the most recent statistics revealing that the number of homicides across Scotland dropped to only 61 last year the lowest level in around half a century.
With that in mind, Dr Stuart Waiton, a senior lecturer in sociology and criminology at Abertay University, stressed that murders are rare and urged caution when trying to interpret small figures like those seen in Dundee.
However, the Dundee trend could be viewed in a broader context.
“This is part of a wider discussion about falling violence in the UK but also across much of Europe and nobody is very clear why this is happening,” he explained.
“There are various theories of course: the most useful ones attempting to look at the changing culture that we live in, the less overtly macho-aggressive culture for example, perhaps related to the changing nature of ‘masculinity’.
“Is there less anger in society, for example, less anger about society being unequal etc. Perhaps fewer ‘angry young men’ raging against the world?
“Is this a good thing? Some may think the world deserves to be raged at and that young people are rather sedate considering the various problems society has.
“On this same note, it would be interesting to see how many (especially poor people) are now on some form of drugs provided by the state Prozac for example.
“Most noticeably, how many people are on methadone being given their daily hit by the state rather than having to bother to even find their own drugs?
“This again could be seen as a good thing possibly reducing violence in society.
“It could alternatively be seen in a Brave New World kind of way where we are increasingly given soma the happy pill.”
Dr Waiton added that there is also potentially an issue with young people and young adults who get their entertainment in their own bedrooms: playing computer games, mixing in online communities and having online relationships.
“Not to be a downer about the internet, which is a fantastic thing, but I suspect the streets are a lot more empty than they used to be especially empty of young people,” he added.
“Again, some may think this is a good thing because it is likely to mean less antisocial behaviour and probably less violence.
“But it also means there is less of a ‘public’, literally.
“Perhaps we are all becoming less public, less sociable, less connected with one another.
“So when we see crime figures falling, perhaps it is not always a reflection that we are living in a better world?”No complacency, say policePolice in Dundee have insisted they will continue to guard against complacency after the city marked exactly two years to the day since a murder was committed.
Detectives in Dundee were last involved in a full murder investigation on July 21 2013, when 29-year-old Michael Given was found dead at a flat in Elders Court in the early hours of the morning.
Matthew Pope, now aged 24, was later sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of striking Mr Given on the head with a wooden post with nails sticking out of it, and punching, kicking and stamping on his body.
A two-week trial in Aberdeen heard how Pope drunkenly battered Mr Given to death as he lay defenceless on the living room floor of his Lochee flat before leaving the 29-year-old lying in a pool of blood.
Pope had carried out an earlier attack on Mr Given just before midnight, during which he hit him with a wooden post and knocked him to the ground.
But after leaving the flat for around 20 minutes, he returned to the property and shouted he was “back to finish off the job”.
During the trial, medical experts revealed that one of the skull fractures Pope inflicted on his victim was of the severity usually seen in high-speed road crashes.
Twenty-four months may have passed since that murder, but a police spokesperson said the force will never get complacent.
“Police Scotland welcomes the continued reduction in homicides which was highlighted in a Scottish Government report in December of last year,” they said.
“Policing in Scotland has a strong record of homicide detection and we continue to work every day to reduce not only homicides but all forms of crime, especially violent crimes.
“The recent reform of policing in Scotland and the creation of a single force has brought many benefits including ensuring that every community across Scotland has equal access to specialist officers like the Major Investigation Teams who specialise in homicide investigations.”
Where Dundee stands in comparison to other Scottish areas in the 2014/15 figures remains to be seen, although that will become evident when new national figures are published in the autumn.
The solitary murder for 2013/14 is in stark contrast to the year before, when six were recorded in Dundee.
That gave a murder rate of 4.05 per 100,000 people, the highest in Scotland at the time, with Glasgow’s higher population meaning it had a lower murder rate of 3.19 per 100,000 people despite 19 murders
taking place there over a 12-month period.
In Edinburgh and Aberdeen, where there were only two murders apiece, the murder rates stood at 0.41 and 0.88 per 100,000 people respectively.Grisly stories from city’s pastDundee has been the scene of some of Scotland’s most notorious murders, with archives documenting the city’s grisly history for centuries.
One of the highest-profile 19th Century murderers was William Henry Bury, a sawdust merchant from East London who strangled his new bride Ellen after they had travelled to Dundee from London in 1889.
Nothing overly out of the ordinary there one might think, but Bury was in fact suspected of being infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper.
On Sunday February 11 of that year, he presented at the police office to report his wife’s death. He told a Lieutentant Parr that he found his wife dead with a rope around her neck.
His response was to mutilate her body with a knife, break her legs and crush her body into a box.
Police found Ripper messages chalked on his door but local and London police dismissed him as a fantasist. After a protracted trial, a jury delivered a unanimous death sentence and it remains the last time anyone was hanged in Dundee.
Another trial to have achieved notoriety was the trial of Mary Elder, or Smith, in 1827, who was more popularly known as the Wife o’ Denside.
She was accused of murdering her maid, Margaret Warden, with arsenic.
A jury returned a verdict of ‘not proven’ against her, though popular opinion condemned her as guilty.
Scotland was shocked in 1967 by the acts of Robert Mone, who was jailed for killing 26-year-old Nanette Hanson in St John’s High School after taking the teacher and her class hostage.
The female pupils endured a 90-minute ordeal, during which Mone raped one of them and sexually assaulted another, before shooting their teacher.
More than a decade later, in March 1979, the media focus fell on Dundee once more as the strangled and naked body of teenage mother and prostitute Carol Lannen was found in Templeton Woods.
Her handbag and clothing was discovered on the banks of the River Don, near Kintore, 11 days later.
Almost a year after that murder, another body was found in Templeton Woods, only 150 yards from where Carol’s body had been found.
Nursery nurse Elizabeth McCabe, 20, had been last seen alive leaving a nightclub in Dundee on Sunday February 10 1980.
Both crimes remain unsolved.
In more recent times, the city was shocked by the horrific 1992 murder of Gordon Dunbar, whose body parts were found on Dundee Law and Dudhope Park; the 2001 killing of civil servant Anne Nicoll, who was stabbed 29 times in a frenzied attack on Dundee Law; and the brutal rape and murder in 2010 of Mary McLaren, whose body was found covered by ivy close to the Ladywell roundabout in the city centre.