This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Racist incidents in Scotland
27/03/2007
There were 5,124 racist incidents recorded by the police in 2005-06, an increase of 588 (13 per cent) from 2004-05, according to statistics published today. This is the first time that centrally collated statistics on racist incidents recorded by the eight Scottish police forces have been produced by the Executive.
Other main findings include:
- In 2005-06 the number of racist related crimes recorded by the police in Scotland was 6,439, up 12 per cent from 5,732 in 2004-05
- Most incidents took place in the street, and most commonly occurred on Friday or Saturday night
- Two specific crimes - racially aggravated harassment and racially aggravated conduct - accounted for over half of all racist related crimes recorded by the police
- The majority of victims were of Asian origin (that is, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or other Asian), with the majority being Pakistani. The largest visible minority ethnic group in the Scottish population is Pakistani, based on the 2001 census figures
- Over 20 per cent of victims had experience of one or more previous racist incidents
Although the number of incidents recorded is increasing, this may be due in part to several factors, such as increasing public intolerance of such behaviour, increased public confidence that reporting such incidents is worthwhile and Forces' work with a range of victim support agencies to encourage reporting.
Background:
The definition of a racist incident as given by Sir William MacPherson in his Report on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry is "any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person." This bulletin presents, for the first time, centrally collated statistics on racist incidents recorded by Scottish police forces using this definition, for the period from 2003-04 to 2005-06.
Any racist incident reported to the police may involve one or more victims, one or more perpetrators, and result in one or more crimes or offences being recorded. This bulletin reports details of all incidents, all crimes or offences associated with each incident, and, where possible, details of the victims and perpetrators. It is also important to note that these statistics cover only incidents reported to the police, not all racist incidents.
Central Scotland Police have a robust system in place for recording and monitoring racist incidents. However, due to changes to their recording systems between 2003-04 and 2004-05, they were unable to supply the detailed information requested for 2003-04. Figures for 2003-04, therefore, are for the remaining seven forces only and care must be taken when examining trends over time.