I fully agree with all of this. As for my own experience of being out and about, when I was starting to go out with friends at weekend, that was the late 1990s and Paisley and Glasgow felt much the same to me in terms of feeling safe.  Paisley was the drugs capital of Scotland back in those days and I remember Panorama doing a special programme dedicated to the drugs problem in Paisley.  Paisley probably felt like the better option in terms of being easier to get home from but I did witness and personally experience some very scary situations. As St. Lucifer has already mentioned, incidents are more widely reported than they were previously.  Google or similar programmes alert us to incidents in our local area with links to articles on the STV and BBC Scotland websites.  Also more people, especially women, are realising the importance of speaking up when they have been attacked and not feeling ashamed as though it is their fault, quite rightly so and full credit to any victim who goes to the Police and put the justice system into practice.

I hope your uncle will be okay, Scott.  That is a horrible thing to have happened to him. In my personal opinion, using a knife on another person or animal to inflict pain or worse is one of the lowest and most cowardly acts someone can do.