Racist Incidents Recorded by the Police in Scotland, 2012-13

1. Introduction

1.1 This bulletin is part of a series of bulletins produced by the Scottish Government on the criminal justice system. It presents statistics on racist incidents recorded and cleared up by the eight legacy Scottish police forces in 2012-13. Any racist incident reported to the police may involve one or more victims/complainers, one or more perpetrators, and may result in one or more crimes or offences being recorded.

1.2 The definition of a racist incident, as given by Sir William MacPherson in his report on the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, is "any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person".

1.3 There were 4,628 racist incidents recorded by the police in Scotland in 2012-13, a 14% decrease on the 5,389 incidents in 2011-12.

Chart 1 Racist incidents recorded by the police in Scotland, 2004-05 to 2012-13