Question reference: S5W-09715
- Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 16 June 2017
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Current status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 28 June 2017
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it holds information on the (a) faith group, (b) gender, (c) race and (d) country of origin of the perpetrators of (i) racist and (ii) religious hate crime and, if not, what its position is on collecting such information when implementing the recommendations of the Independent Advisory Group on Hate Crime, Prejudice and Community Cohesion.
Answer
The Scottish Government report “Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland 2016-2017” includes information on the gender of the accused for religious aggravation charges reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal (COPFS). This information is derived from the COPFS database with the report available here: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/06/6107/0
For race crime, as recorded on the COPFS database, 77% of the charges reported to them in 2016-17 related to a male accused.
Statistics on other characteristics of the perpetrator are not available centrally.
Dr Morrow’s independent advisory group on Hate Crime, Prejudice and Community Cohesion reported in September 2016 and recommended that the SG works with partners to improve the monitoring and data collection in relation to hate crime, and to develop methods to include qualitative indices of improvement in community cohesion for minorities.
We are currently working with Police Scotland as they develop the data they hold on their Vulnerable Persons Database with a view to producing new analysis on police recorded Hate Incidents (which would include incidents with a race or religious element). We anticipate a further update for users on the development of this work later in the year.