A new report into the extent of hate crimes committed in Scotland has highlighted almost two-thirds of all race-related hate offences had a visible minority ethnic (non-white) victim, a group that makes up around 4% of the population.
The detailed study looking at the characteristics of victims and perpetrators of reported hate crime incidents in 2018-19 also found that:
- around a third of crimes involved a victim who experienced the incident at work
- almost two-thirds of hate crime victims and three-quarters of perpetrators were male
- in the majority (94%) of sexual-orientation aggravated hate crimes the perpetrator showed prejudice towards the gay and lesbian community
- in around two-fifths of religion aggravated hate crimes the perpetrator showed prejudice towards the Catholic community
- in a quarter of such crimes prejudice was shown towards the Muslim community and in one in ten cases it was towards the Protestant community
- there were 1,080 recorded hate crimes in 2018-19 with a police officer victim
- hate crimes with an aggravation for transgender identity have doubled over the past six years from 48 to 96
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