SCOTLAND’s success in cutting violent crime has inspired a drive in Canada to divert a tenth of policing budgets to prevention.

Campaigners are using what they call the ‘Glasgow case’ - a halving of serious violence in just three years - as an example of what can be achieved by not trying to “arrest your way way out of a problem”.

The Canadian Municipal Network on Crime Prevention is hoping cities - which fund most law enforcement in their country - will adapt schemes pioneered in Glasgow and then the rest of Scotland by the Violence Reduction Unit or VRU.

Their decision to highlight Scottish success comes a decade and a half after the World Health Organization (WHO) first highlighted violence as a health issue - rather than just a justice one.

Ever since a succession of nations have gradually south to adopt preventative measures - such as tackling knife carrying, focusing on gangs or encouraging youth diversion progammes, as in Scotland.

Ottawa-based expert Irwin Waller, who is championing the Canadian campaign, described how a senior officer in the old Strathclyde Police first changed tactics, realizing he was catching killers but not stopping killings and so came to back spending on youth services rather than just enforcement.

He said: “It is easy to catch, convict and incarcerate. But he said this ain’t a solution. So what is he gonna do?

He brings in an epidemiologist, someone who analyses the history of these kids whether the problems are. Then y ou go from that diagnoses to a plan and then, bingo, in three years you have a 50 per cent reduction.

“Every city in Canada that has a street violence problem - and that is almost every city in Canada - can do this and it is not expensive.”

The VRU quickly expanded across Scotland from Strathclyde. The country’s homicide rate plunged between 2007 and 2013 but has been relatively stable since. It rose slightly last year, as did overall reports of serious violence.

Mr Waller was one of more than 200 delegates at a major conference organized by the WHO to share best practice on violence prevention in Ottawa. Also attending was Christine Goodall of Scottish charity Medics Against Violence. A dental surgeon at Glasgow Dental Hospital who has to repair the damage done by violence, Dr Goodall is a close associate of the VRU.

She said: “It is good to adopt things from other places and there is no point reinventing the wheel. And certainly when the VRU began they looked around the world at what was working and wha right fit in a Scottish context

“But you have to fit it for your justice system and health system. Back in 2005-2006 when murder an injuries were at their highest, what happened initially was more a traditional policing, law enforcement approach.

“The success they had initially with that allowed them to put some prevention behind it. So the two things worked hand in hand.

“Scotland is looked at as a beacon on violence prevention, because they were brave enough to take a novel approach, the right thing at the right time.”

Her colleague Michael Murray, a specialist anesthetist at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital who has dealt with horrific violent head injuries, added: “The VRU is almost an anti-policing police unit, a policing public health unit and I don’t think that exists in many other places because people are too tied up with ‘we need to arrest people, to get police in the street’ to take a step back and ask ‘what can we do differently?’.

A spokeswoman for the VRU said: "Glasgow and Scotland have come a long way in reducing violence. We've achieved this only by everyone working together. The VRU are proud to have played their part in that reduction.

"We sought out inspiration from around the world to find tactics that worked and we're pleased to share what we've learned with all those trying to make their countries safer. Scotland has shown that violence isn't inevitable it is preventable. However every life lost is one too many and we'll keep working to make Scotland the safest country in the world."