Hate crime strategy

Aim 3

Communities are empowered, inclusive and safe and the underlying causes of hate crime are challenged.

We want people to live in communities where equality, human rights and humanity are upheld, and where they feel they belong. Challenging prejudice and hate crime is not the responsibility of the communities that are targeted – it is for wider society.

In order to effectively prevent and tackle hate crime, people need to understand what hate crime is and the impact it can have.

Educating our children and young people will help set the agenda for our future society, foster community cohesion and support children and young people to develop critical thinking skills. We recognise the important role formal and informal education can play in supporting children and young people to understand prejudicial attitudes and how they can be supported to challenge them.

Commitment 8

We will support and fund organisations that work together to build more inclusive, supportive communities in Scotland.

Lead organisation: Scottish Government

Cohesive communities are able to reject divisive narratives and are places where everyone can contribute, exercise their rights, and live free from prejudice and hate crime.

Through our lived experience engagement we heard that communities value the opportunity to share their cultural heritage and that coming together can help to illuminate the similarities that bring communities together. We will explore initiatives where a diverse range of people from across Scotland's communities come together.

Our Culture Strategy for Scotland recognises the transformative and empowering role culture can play in supporting local communities distinct sense of place and identity.^[32] The current review of Scotland's National Events Strategy provides the opportunity to further harness the significant potential of events to promote inclusive and supportive communities; to celebrate cultural diversity; and to showcase Scotland's core values of equality, fairness and inclusion across the country and internationally.

The Scottish Government funds a range of organisations across Scotland who are working to build inclusive, supportive communities and we want to champion that activity. We continue to recognise the work of organisations such as Interfaith Scotland, Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and Remembering Srebrenica. We will also build on the support offered to a range of civic society organisations, including through the Equality and Human Rights Fund.

Commitment 9

We will consider how education and youth work can support children and young people to recognise prejudice and hate crime and the devastating impact it has on individuals and their communities.

Lead organisation(s): Scottish Government, Education bodies, YouthLink Scotland, respectme, Scotland's Anti-Bullying Service

Prevention and education efforts are essential to ensure everybody thrives in our communities. Our Curriculum for Excellence promotes learning about respect, equality and good citizenship. Health and Wellbeing is a responsibility for all within the curriculum. It provides a framework within which children and young people learn about healthy relationships, to help address prejudicial attitudes. It also requires teachers to provide an inclusive environment that embraces diversity and upholds learners rights.

Feedback from our lived experience engagement highlighted just how important participants felt education was in terms of tackling hatred and prejudice in Scotland.^[33] They were keen to see a range of educational inputs offered to children and young people. Participants were also concerned about incidents happening between young people and were eager to ensure schools are properly equipped to respond to them. The importance of appropriate teacher training was also noted.

We know that there are concerns about the line between what constitutes bullying or a hate crime (and other forms of prejudice such as racism, homophobia and gender-based violence). This is something we will seek to provide clarity on in the review of our national anti-bullying guidance 'Respect for All' which is underway. Bullying can be motivated by prejudice similar to hate crime and so it is important that young people understand when bullying may become a hate crime. Incidents involving young people which don't constitute a crime still need to be taken seriously and addressed.

The forthcoming National Youth Work Strategy will also recognise the role that the youth work sector has to play in supporting young people's wellbeing.

We welcome the publication of the joint report from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), 'Tackling persistent inequalities together.' The report outlines persistent inequalities in the tertiary education system and asks institutions to address them by contributing to a set of National Equality Outcomes (NEOs), as part of their Public Sector Equality Duty. We will continue to work with the SFC, EHRC, and stakeholders in the tertiary education sector as this is put into practice.

Commitment 10

We will invest significant effort in the development of effective approaches to preventing hate crime, in line with other commitments set out in the strategy.

Lead organisation: Scottish Government

We want to create a Scotland that is inclusive, cohesive and fair, where all communities are valued and have equal belonging. We will continue to support a range of work that advances human rights, social justice and an inclusive national identity.

We are strongly committed to keeping Scotland safe and recognise the danger from people who seek to spread hate and disrupt our way of life. This includes those involved in and supportive of extremist and terrorist causes. The most effective way to tackle hate crime and extremism of any sort is through prevention and we will take action to identify and support activity and organisations that foster social cohesion and build resilience to divisive narratives.

In order to effectively tackle hate crime, it is important that we improve our understanding of why hate crime happens and use this to develop sustainable approaches to prevention. It is critical that preventative messages and activities undertaken to promote cohesive communities are accessible and reach those most at risk of developing or acting on prejudicial attitudes. We will work with a range of stakeholders to identify the most effective interventions.

We will support activity that encourages good relationships between the police – and other public bodies – and the community, while recognising that these relations have been challenging for some groups. We will also explore potential for greater collaboration between youth work organisations, schools and survivor organisations as a driver for rights-respecting practice and a way to drive cultural change.

In order to strengthen our focus to prevent and reduce the harm caused by violence, we are publishing a Violence Prevention Framework for Scotland, which will bring together the available evidence on violence, spotlight the wider cross government work to tackle various forms of violence, and will include a variety of actions to help tackle the underlying causes and behaviours that may lead to violence, helping to build safer communities.

Commitment 11

We will develop a toolkit of resources for local authorities and their partners to address hate crime and build community cohesion.

Lead organisation: Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), Scottish Government

Local authorities can play a substantial role in building community cohesion and helping eradicate hatred and prejudice across Scotland. They are uniquely placed to understand – and work with – the diverse communities they serve.

Communities affected by hate crime told us it is important that local services are joined up and be able to effectively respond to instances of hate crime.

Strengthened preventative approaches are needed at a local level to target the underlying societal attitudes that lead to hate crime. Local authorities are well placed to take a place-based approach to tackling hate crime. They have an important role to play in education, awareness raising, encouraging reporting and supporting victims. This work is supported by local authorities' close relationships with partner organisations and community groups, including Community Planning Partnerships. There is a need to ensure that there is accessible, adequate and quality information from trusted and informed sources, including written communication and signposting.

A joint Scottish Government and COSLA workshop in September 2022 highlighted the range of activity undertaken by local authorities and partners, such as the NHS, housing associations, and those responsible for delivering Community Learning and Development, to tackle hatred and prejudice across the country. It was attended by Scottish Councils Equality Network members and other partner organisations including the Scottish Community Safety Network, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and SACRO. So we know that a lot of good practice exists in tackling hate crime and building community cohesion and our delivery plan will consider how this could be developed into a toolkit to be shared to help inform and support local policy and practice across Scotland.

Commitment 12

We will undertake regular public awareness-raising activity.

Lead organisation: Scottish Government, Police Scotland

Undertaking effective awareness-raising activity that is informed by lived experience and is shaped with different audiences in mind is crucial.

In our engagement to date, we have heard that some people do not recognise their experiences as a potential hate crime. As such, we need to do more to explain what hate crime is and ensure people know what to do if they experience one. The delivery plan will set out activity to be taken forward.

We recognise that public awareness activity can be a helpful tool in reaching potential perpetrators of hate crime. We also recognise that many people who witness a hate crime may wish to intervene but do not know how to do so appropriately. It is important that everyone knows how to provide support to those who have experienced hate crime.

Scottish Government and Police Scotland will continue to work with partners to raise awareness of hate crime through the use of national hate crime campaigns whilst also supporting our partners' campaigns and initiatives.

We also recognise the importance of ensuring that national messaging includes the voices of those with lived experience, and to ensure that messaging does not reinforce stereotypes. Messages can be targeted and adapted for different groups or areas which may be dealing with particular issues.

The Scottish Government and partners also support National Hate Crime Awareness Week every October which provides an opportunity to reinforce awareness-raising messaging deployed throughout the year.

Commitment 13

We will work to ensure people feel safe using public transport.

Lead organisation: Scottish Government

We understand from our lived experience engagement that public transport can often be the scene of hate crime – and that some people choose not to use public transport because of fear they may be targeted. Public transport is often the only way for people to travel between one safe space and another and we heard of a number of appalling incidents on public transport where people were verbally or physically attacked.

It must be made clear that hatred will not be tolerated anywhere, including on public transport.

The Hate Crime Charter aims to encourage transport providers, members of the public and other services to support a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime on Scotland's public transport network. With an initial focus on disability hate crime (and intersecting characteristics), Disability Equality Scotland developed the Hate Crime Charter in partnership with Transport Scotland, the South-East Scotland Transport Partnership, People First (Scotland), Police Scotland and British Transport Police. The delivery plan will set out in more detail the activity to be taken forward.

Through our lived experience engagement we will seek to build our understanding of hate crime that takes place in other public spaces and what can be done to address that.

Commitment 14

We will ensure our approach to tackling hate crime recognises and addresses the challenges associated with online hate crime.

Lead organisations: Scottish Government, Police Scotland

We increasingly live our lives online and the increased social media use over the past decade has changed the means by which prejudicial views are expressed and disseminated. Our lived experience engagement demonstrated the harmful effect online hate crime can have on individuals and communities, with some groups reporting an increase in prevalence and a feeling that people are able to 'get away' with expressing hateful views online.

We are clear that action should be taken when things that are criminal or harmful are posted online, as they are when they happen in person.

Regulation of internet services is reserved to the UK Government and we will continue to engage with the UK Government as they progress the Online Safety Bill to ensure people are safe online.

However, regulation is not the only tool. We will consider how we discuss the impacts of online hate crime in our awareness raising activity and in developing preventative and educational approaches to tackling hate crime, recognising the need to adapt and react to the speed of change online. We also want to ensure people – including children and young people – know how to keep safe online, including on social media.

We understand that sometimes people may be reluctant to report online hate crime, because they feel further action may not be taken or that this report will not be taken seriously. As with in person hate crime, we encourage all online hate crimes to be reported to Police Scotland who will investigate. We will ensure our approach to encouraging reporting explains the process after the report of an online hate crime.