Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland 2012-13

Executive Summary

• In 2012-13 687 charges were reported with a religious aggravation under section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003. This is a 24% decrease compared to 2011-12. There were 901¹ charges reported in 2011-12, and 696 in 2010-11. The figures for the preceding five years were relatively stable, with between 600 and 700 charges reported each year.
• This reduction may have been partly due to the use of section 1 of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012, (which came into force on 1 March 2012). The Act criminalises religious hatred that is connected to football and may be used instead of section 74 in certain circumstances. The accompanying report² shows that there were 75 additional charges³ relating to religious charges under this legislation during 2012-13. When added together there were therefore 762 charges relating to religious prejudice in 2012-13 when both pieces of legislation are considered (which still represents a decrease from 2011-12).
• Similar to previous years, a substantial proportion (40.9%) of all charges were in Glasgow, 91% were male and 48.6% of all accused were between the ages of 16 and 30. The accused was described by the police as being under the influence of alcohol in 48.5% of charges.
• The number of football-related charges has decreased since last year from 267(30.5% of the total) in 2011-12, to 109 (15.9%) in 2012-13. The number of charges occurring in football stadiums has also decreased from 67 in 2011-12 (7.6%), to 27 in 2012-13 (3.9%). This reduction also may have been due to the use of section 1 of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act (2012) for religiously offensive football-related behaviour. This legislation resulted in an extra 75 religious charges that were related to football, so there were 184 football-related charges that contained religious prejudice, when both pieces of legislation are considered (which still represents a decrease from the 267 charges reported in 2011-12).
• As with 2011-12 and 2012-13, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism were most often the religions that were the subject of abuse but there was a 24% decrease in the number of charges that referred to Roman Catholicism, from 509 charges (58.1% of the total) in 2011-12 to 388 charges (56.5%) in 2012-13. There was a 44% decrease in the charges that referred to Protestantism from 353 (40.3%) in 2011-12 to 199 (29.0%) in 2012-13.
• There has been an increase in charges where conduct was derogatory towards Islam, from 19 charges (2.2% of the total) in 2011-12 to 80 charges (11.6% of the total) in 2012-13. This can be explained by one incident at a march in Glasgow, in which there were 57 anti-Islam charges. There was also an increase in the charges that referred to Judaism from 14 (1.6%) in 2011-12 to 27 (3.9%) in 2012-13.
• Police officers were the most common target of religiously aggravated abuse with 273 charges (39.7%), a decrease from 449 (51.3%) in 2011-12. The occasions when religious abuse targeted people within the 'general community' and not a particular individual, represented a third (33.6%) of all charges.
• There were 262 convictions from 313 concluded main charges, which is an overall conviction rate of 84%. The most common disposal recorded was a monetary penalty (39.7%); which was a slight decrease from 43.0% in 2011-12. The figures show a slight increase in the proportion of charges which resulted in a community penalty (23.3%, compared to 21.8% in 2011-12) and custody (22.9% compared to 20.4% in 2011-12).