PEOPLE affected by hate crime have been encouraged to come forward to police to ensure perpetrators can be properly dealt with.
The advice follows the publication of a series of reports covering hate crime, religiously aggravated offences and the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012.
The reports show racial crime charges are the most common brought by police, but with a decrease of 10 per cent compared to 2015/16, sexual orientation aggravated charges increased by 5 per cent compared to 2015/16, the number of religiously aggravated charges is the highest since 2012/13 and that 44 per cent of victims in religiously aggravated charges were police officers.
Minister for Community Safety Annabelle Ewing said: "Any crime motivated by prejudice is absolutely unacceptable. While the statistics show a decrease in reported racial crimes, there have been increases in those related to sexual orientation, religion and transgender identity and we cannot be complacent about these crimes are dealt with."
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