The Scottish Government

Remit

Role

The role of the working group was to agree the methods, format and frequency of a comprehensive reporting and recording system for racist incidents in Scotland.

Definition of a Racist Incident

The definition of a racist incident has been agreed by the Scottish Executive and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) to be that of the Macpherson Inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence i.e. 'That a racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person'

Key Tasks

The group considered:

• The desired criteria to be collected by the police for each racist incident.
• The feasibility of collecting the desired output using data currently collected by forces. If the desired data cannot be collected, working with the police to modify their collection and recording methods.
• The scope of the collection, looking at whether all 'remote' reporting of incidents will be included or only those reported directly to the police.
• A method and format for the collection of statistics that can be used consistently throughout the 8 police forces in Scotland and that does not place an undue burden on the force staff requested to collect and collate the data.
• The method and format for disseminating statistics on the racist incidents collected.

Meetings

Meetings papers of the ScotStat Crime and Justice Committee Working Group on the Collection of Statistics on Racist Incidents.