Understanding and Tackling Barriers to Reporting Hate Crime: Evidence Review

2. A brief overview of hate crime and under-reporting

2.1 What is hate crime?

Hate crime is a term used to describe behaviour which is both criminal and rooted in prejudice. This means that the law has been broken, and the offender’s actions have been driven by hatred towards a particular group (Scottish Government, 2024). Under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, a hate crime is any crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to a characteristic. Under this legislation, which came into effect in April 2024, the protected characteristics are: (1) age, (2) disability, (3) race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins, (4) religion, (5) sexual orientation, (6) transgender identity and (7) variation in sex characteristics (Scottish Government, 2023c)^[2].

The offender’s belief might or might not correspond to the victim’s identity, and the victim’s background is irrelevant as to whether something is a hate crime or not (Scottish Government, 2021). For instance, the Act notes that protection based on ‘religion’ also includes the perceived religious affiliation of a social or cultural group.

Hate crime can be verbal, in writing or physical. It can take place anywhere, including at places of work, public places such as public transport, and online. Some hate crimes do not have individual victims but are targeted at a specific group of people. For example, racist graffiti or a racist online comment can be classified as a race aggravated hate crime regardless of it being directed against a specific individual or a racial group in general (Scottish Government, 2021).

Some people will belong to or identify with more than one protected group. For some, a combination of characteristics will mean that they experience hate crime in a specific way – what is referred to as intersectionality. Intersectionality can significantly impact how people experience hate crime.

2.2 How can hate crime be reported?

There are multiple ways to report a hate crime or incident. If someone has experienced or witnessed a hate crime or incident, they are encouraged to report it to the police. This can be done by calling 999 or 101, attending a police station, or completing an online form. People can report incidents even if offences are not directed towards them.

As some people may not feel comfortable reporting hate crime they have experienced or witnessed to the police, it is also possible to report hate crimes via third party reporting centres. These contain staff trained to recognise hate crimes and help a victim or witness to submit a report to the police on the behalf of victims and witnesses.

2.3 Number of reported hate crimes

The Scottish Government publishes information on the number and nature of hate crimes reported to the police each year. This data offers crucial insight into the incidents that come to the attention of the police. The year of 2024-25 was the first reporting year of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 which was commenced on 1^st April 2024. As the data presented relates to the first year of this new legislation, it is not possible to provide comparisons with the period prior to the act being implemented (Scottish Government, 2026).

In 2024-25, Police Scotland recorded 8,538 hate crimes.

In 2024-25, over three-fifths (62%) of hate crimes included a race aggravator. Just under a quarter (24%) included a sexual orientation aggravator, and just over one in ten (12%) had a disability aggravator. Hate crimes with a religion aggravator made up 7% of all recorded, whilst those with a transgender identity aggravator made up 2%. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 introduced two new protected characteristics: age and variation in sex characteristics. Hate crimes aggravated by age and variation in sex characteristics made up less than 1% of all hate crimes each. Any individual crime can include multiple aggravators. In 2024-25, 7% of hate crimes included more than one aggravator.

In 2024-25, the three most common crime types made up 82% of all hate crimes. Threatening or abusive behaviour accounted for almost half of all hate crimes (48%), this was followed by Racially aggravated conduct which represented 20% of all hate crime recorded and Common Assault (14%).

Accessing further evidence about hate crime in Scotland

Further information on the number of hate crimes, including crime types, each aggravator and the geographical spread of hate crimes, is provided in the Hate crimes recorded by the police in Scotland, 2024-25 report (Scottish Government, 2026). Additionally, this bulletin also includes estimates of victim and perpetrator characteristics, as well as the prejudice shown by perpetrators.

2.4 The issue of under-reporting

As discussed in Section 1.1, not all victims of hate crime report their experience to the police, so data relating to police reports may offer an incomplete picture of the nature and scale of hate crime. Surveys and other research help to further demonstrate the issue of under-reporting and therefore provide a wider perspective on such experiences. For example, more than one in ten (16%) respondents to the 2025 Glasgow Household Survey^[3] said they had had been insulted, pestered or intimidated in the previous 12 months based on their protected characteristics^[4] (Glasgow City Council, 2025)^[5]. Of this group, 74% said they did not report the most recent (or only) incident experienced to the police or any other authority.

A similar lack of reporting of hate-related incidents was also evident among the participants in the lived experience engagement work carried out to support the development of the Hate Crime Strategy for Scotland (Scottish Government, 2023a). Likewise, the Report of the Independent Advisory Group on Hate Crime, Prejudice and Community Cohesion identified the problem of under-reporting of hate crimes as a theme emerging from stakeholder engagement (Independent Advisory Group on Hate Crime, Prejudice and Community Cohesion, 2016).

This report supports efforts to better understand and respond to under-reporting, by:

• Providing an enhanced understanding of the key barriers to reporting hate crime in a single report
• Highlighting key examples of strategies and approaches which evidence suggests may be effective ways of tackling or overcoming these barriers

However, it is important to note that the issue of under-reporting does not only apply to hate crime, but is a wider issue amongst victims of crime.^[6] Therefore, as noted in Section 1.3, some strategies to encourage reporting of crime in general may also benefit hate crime victims. As such, some relevant examples are drawn on in this report.