Detailed analysis of religious hate crime

Statistics published by the Scottish Government have provided a detailed picture of the scale of religious hate crimes across Scotland.

The figures show that:

• The proportional spread of religions targeted has remained similar, with the two main religious beliefs targeted being Catholicism and Protestantism.
• There were 19 attacks on Islam in 2011-12, up from 15 in 10-11, and 14 on Judaism, down from 16 in 10-11. Around 26% of anti-Islam charges were for assaults, compared to less than 5% of other religiously aggravated attacks.
• Most areas of Scotland have seen a rise in religiously aggravated charges, with Glasgow being a notable exception.
• Individual members of the public were the victims of religiously aggravated offending in less than a third of cases (31%). In the majority of cases, police officers and the wider community in general were the victims, accounting for 51% and 30% of all cases.
• The number of charges related to football rose from 231 to 267, although the number of charges at football stadiums reduced both in terms of number and as a proportion of all charges, from 90 in 10-11 (13%) to 67 in 11-12 (8%).
• Just 2% of incidents were related to marches and parades.