The Scottish Government have published a progress report on work conducted with Police Scotland to review the availability of information on hate crime recorded by the police in Scotland.
The Interim Vulnerable Persons Database (IVPD), used by Police Scotland, is the only system in Scotland that holds information on all hate-related activity faced by the police. A review was commenced in 2016 to investigate what associated analysis could be produced on the scale and nature of police-recorded hate crime in Scotland.
Findings so far include:
- that the IVPD does adequately reflect the total volume of hate crime that comes to the attention of Police Scotland
- that it can therefore be used to produce summary information that will provide a good indication of the scale of police-recorded hate crime in Scotland
- that police recorded 6,736 hate crimes in 2017-18, of which 67% included a race aggravator, 16% a sexual orientation aggravator, 7% a religion aggravator, 4% a disability aggravator and 1% a transgender identity aggravator
- that the most frequently recorded hate crimes in 2017-18 were threatening or abusive behaviour (45% of all hate crimes recorded), racially aggravated conduct (23%), common assault (13%) and offences relating to the 2003 Communications Act (5%).
