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The first annual report on hate crime recorded by the police, under Section 15 of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. This includes information on the number and type of hate crimes recorded by the police, as well as victim and perpetrator characteristics and prejudice shown.

Part of

• Recorded crime in Scotland

Introduction

This report presents information on the number of hate crimes recorded by the police in Scotland during 2024-25.

It is the first report under Section 15 of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 and as specified within the legislation, it includes information on;

• The number of police recorded offences aggravated by prejudice within the meaning of section 1 of the Act (Section 15 (2)),
• The number of offences recorded under the Act (Section 15 (2)),
• The age, sex and ethnicity of victims and perpetrators (to the extent that this has been recorded by Police Scotland) (Section 15 (3)) and;
• The specific prejudice shown by the perpetrator across the seven hate categories (again to the extent that this has been recorded) (Section 15 (4))

Police Scotland introduced a new administrative system to capture the required information from the point the Act commenced. As this system continues to bed in, it does not yet have the functionality to submit the data needed for Sections 15 (3) and (4), in a way that easily allows onward processing and analysis. Therefore, Justice Analytical Services (JAS) and Police Scotland agreed that this first report will take a hybrid approach whereby (i) Section 15 (2) (on numbers of recorded hate crimes) will be based on data provided by Police Scotland and (ii) a large sample of those crimes (consisting of 1,000 records) would be manually reviewed by JAS to provide an estimate of the information needed for Sections 15 (3) and 15 (4).

The methodology used to collect data on the characteristics of hate crime (sections 15 (3) and 15 (4)) should be considered a temporary approach, the aim of which is to provide users with a detailed understanding of those involved (both victims and perpetrators) and the specific types of prejudice shown. Analysts within JAS and Police Scotland will continue to work together to ensure the data system’s functionality is able to provide the full information required for both 2024-25 and 2025-26, in time for the subsequent report.

The analysis provided in this report can only inform users about cases that were reported to or otherwise came to the attention of the police. These may not necessarily be the same as for those hate crimes that didn’t get reported by a victim or anyone else, and therefore the characteristics of all hate crime in Scotland could be different.

Recording procedures

Contraventions of Scottish criminal law are generally divided for statistical purposes into crimes or offences. For the purposes of this report the term ‘hate crime’ includes both crimes and offences.

‘Crime’ is generally used for the more serious criminal acts; the less serious termed ‘offences’, although the term ‘offence’ may also be used in relation to serious breaches of criminal law. The distinction is made only for working purposes and the ‘seriousness’ of the offence is generally related to the maximum sentence that can be imposed. More information can be found in our earlier study on hate crime, along with definitions of the most frequently committed hate crimes.

A hate crime is any crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards a social group.

Not all crimes will necessarily have a victim. One example may be where racist graffiti not directed at any individual (i.e. a hate crime of vandalism with a race aggravator) is discovered and reported. There can also be cases where damaged property is owned by an organisation (for example a local authority) rather than a person. Where there are person-based victims, these can often be police officers in the line of duty (including for example an estimated 46% of hate crimes with a sexual orientation aggravator in 2024-25).

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