An Official Statistics publication for Scotland

A report on Hate Crime in Scotland 2019-20 was published today. This brings together figures on race crime, and on crime motivated by prejudice related to religion, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity. 

The main findings are

• There has been an increase in the number of charges reported in 2019-20 compared to 2018-19 for all categories of hate crime.

• Racial crime remains the most commonly reported hate crime. In total 3,038 charges relating to race crime were reported in 2019-20, an increase of 4 percent compared to 2018-19. Although the number of charges has increased in 2019-20, it is still the second lowest annual figure since consistent figures became available in 2003-04.

• Sexual orientation aggravated crime is the second most commonly reported type of hate crime. The number of charges reported increased by 24 percent in 2019-20 to 1,486. With the exception of 2014-15, there have been year on year increases in charges reported since the legislation introducing this aggravation came into force in 2010.

• There were 660 religiously aggravated charges reported in 2019-20, an increase of 24 percent compared to 2018-19. Direct comparisons are not possible with earlier years, but the number of charges reported with a religious aggravation in 2019-20 appears to be at around the same level as the number of charges containing a religious element in 2015-16, but lower than the level in 2016-17.

• The number of disability aggravated charges increased by 29 percent to 387 in 2019-20.

• There were 41 charges reported in 2019-20 with an aggravation of transgender identity, compared to 40 in 2018-19.

Additional Information:

1. The figures quoted relate to the number of charges rather than the number of individuals charged or the number of incidents that gave rise to such charges. Where a charge has more than one hate crime aggravation, it is included in the overall figures for each type of hate crime into which it falls.
2. The publication does not include information on convictions or conviction rates. Many of the charges reported in 2019-20 will not yet have reached conviction stage. The Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database is the usual source for convictions data, and they have published figures for years up to 2018-19 on people with a main charge proved with an aggravator recorded - see tables 12 and 13 at https://www.gov.scot/publications/criminal-proceedings-scotland-2018-19/