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Reported hate crime on rise, says Crown Office

Reported incidents of hate crime in Scotland showed a significant rise in 2011-12, according to figures published by Crown Office today.

The prosecution authority suggests that the rise "is likely to have been partly due to increased awareness, reporting and recording of these crimes following several incidents relating to religious prejudice which received significant media attention during the year". However all categories of hate crime reached new peaks, albeit figures for some have only recently begun to be collected.

In total 4,518 charges of race crime were reported to the Procurator Fiscal in 2011-12, compared to 4,178 in 2010-11 (up 8%). The 2010-11 figure was the lowest in the six years covered by the publication; the previous high was 4,365 in 2007-08. Court proceedings were commenced in respect of 81% of these charges.

There were 897 reports of charges with a religious aggravation, up 29% from the 695 in 2010-11, which itself almost equalled the previous high of 696 offences in 2006-07. Proceedings were brought in 86% of these cases.

2011-12 was the second full year of implementation of the legislation relating to the newer hate crime categories. From these, there were 652 charges reported with an aggravation of sexual orientation (447 in 2010-11), 68 with an aggravation of disability (48 in 2010-11), and 16 with an aggravation of transgender identity (14 in 2010-11).

The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 only came into force on 1 March 2012. In the first month of its operation, provisional figures show that 42 charges were reported to the procurator fiscal under the Act.

Click here to access the full report.


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