Racist Reports Increase In Fife

The number of reported racist incidents in Fife has gone up in the last 12 months.

According to figures released today, 246 instances of racial abuse were reported to police in the Kingdom, up by 66 on the previous year.

Members of the Pakistani community are most likely to be victims of racism - though there's been an increase across the country in 'white Scottish' complainants'

Police are attributing the overall 4% increase to more people reporting racism.

There were 4,807 racist incidents recorded by the police in Scotland in 2013-14. This is an increase of 3.9% compared to 2012-13 when 4,628 incidents were recorded, and the third lowest since 2004-05.

In 2013-14, 94.7% of racist incidents recorded by the police resulted in at least one crime being recorded. A total of 5,520 crimes were recorded as part of a racist incident in 2013-14, a 5.6% increase on the 5,228 crimes recorded in 2012-13.

There was a 77.0% clear-up rate on crimes recorded as part of a racist incident. The most common crimes/offences recorded in 2013-14 from racist incidents were ‘racially aggravated conduct’, ‘breach of the peace' and ‘common assault’.

36.0% of all racist incidents recorded by the police occurred on a street, 20.5% took place in a dwelling house and a further 13.5% in a shop.

Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs Paul Wheelhouse said: "These statistics paint a complex picture of the impact of racist incidents across Scotland. While it is encouraging that the number of incidents involving members of the Pakistani community are now at their lowest levels in a decade, the overall increase in reported racist incidents more generally shows us that more work still needs to be done.

"Where we can dig deeper into the statistics, we can see that many reports are from Scots who are classed as ‘White British’. The fact this mirrors the demographic make-up of Scotland means it may well be down to more witnesses coming forward, which is to be welcomed. 

"Police Scotland, Crimestoppers and community groups themselves have worked hard in recent years to encourage people to report incidents of racism, which reflects a continual trend towards a Scotland where racism and intolerance are becoming less accepted by society."