The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and Scottish Government’s statistics on court proceedings are derived from IT systems designed to facilitate operational needs of reporting crime and prosecuting individuals. These systems were not primarily designed for the reporting of the characteristics of victims of hate crime.
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.