Number of people convicted of standalone hate crime offences under Racially aggravated harassment: FOI release

You asked for:

1. The categories of crimes which the Scottish Government includes within its definition of ‘hate crimes’;

2. The numbers of convictions in Scotland in the last 3 calendar years for which data is  available for these crimes and how that number is broken down among the different crimes;

3. The criteria that are used to assess whether or not the crime is motivated by religious hatred;

4. The numbers of convictions in Scotland in the last 3 calendar years for which data is  available for hate crimes (i.e. the answer to request 2 above) where the primary motivating factor for those crimes is religious hatred as defined in the answer to request 3 above.

1, 3. While there is no statutory definition of  a ‘hate crime’, the term is used to describe behaviour which is both criminal and rooted in prejudice. 

In Scotland, the law currently recognises hate crimes as motivated by prejudice for statutory aggravations based on: 

• Race: section 96 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998,
• Religion: section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003,
• Disability: section 1 of the Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Act 2009,
• Sexual orientation and transgender identity: section 2 of the Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Act 2009.

Prejudice or hostility also lies at the heart of some other offences which are often described as ‘hate crimes’. These are sometimes referred to as standalone hate crime offences and they criminalise behaviour specifically because it is motivated by racial prejudice. Currently, these standalone offences include: 

• Racially aggravated harassment: section 50A of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995;
• Stirring up of racial hatred: sections 18 to 22 of the Public Order Act 1986;

2, 4. The number of people convicted with an aggravator (including: Disability/Racial/Religious/Sexual Orientation/Transgender) recorded against the main charge and the number of people convicted with an aggravator recorded against main charge by crime type can be found in tables 12 and 13 of the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2016-17 (available at: https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics-publication/2018/02/criminal-proceedings-scotland-2016-17/documents/00532010-pdf/00532010-pdf/govscot%3Adocument).

The number of people convicted of standalone hate crime offences under Racially aggravated harassment: section 50A of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995¹ and Public Order Act 1986 s18-22¹ is provided in the table below.