Minister for Community Safety Roseanna Cunningham has cautiously welcomed figures showing a decrease in racist incidents recorded by the police in Scotland in 2010-11.
Ms Cunningham said that there are still far too many hate crimes taking place across the country and warned against complacency in light of more up-to-date Crown Office prosecution statistics published last month. These showed an increase in the number of charges reported to the Procurator Fiscal by the police and other agencies for racism and other forms of hatred in 2011-12.
The ‘Racist Incidents Recorded by the Police in Scotland, 2010-11' statistics show:
- The number of racist incidents recorded by the police in Scotland has shown a reduction for the fourth consecutive year, with 4,907 incidents recorded in 2010-11, an 8% reduction from 2006-07.
- Where ethnic origin of the victim was known, 24% of victims were Pakistani, while 46% of victims were of Asian origin (which includes Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese or other Asian).
- In 2010-11, 46% of perpetrators of racist incidents were aged 20 or under (where age and gender was known).
- The most common times at which racist incidents occurred were on Friday night and Saturday night, with more incidents generally occurring between the hours of 18:00 to midnight.
- The most common locations for an incident in 2010-11 were the street (33%), a dwelling house (19%) and in a shop (17%). Other locations included a restaurant / takeaway (8%) and a pub / place of entertainment (6%).