Religious hate crime reports in huge drop
Offences nearly halve — bucking national trend
The number of bigotry crimes in Renfrewshire has almost halved over the past year, a new report reveals.
There have been far fewer reports of religiously aggravated incidents in the area, while offences across the country have soared during the same period.
Figures from the Crown Office show there were 16 such crimes recorded in the period 2016-17, which is down from 29 in the previous year, 2015-16.
While across Scotland, 673 incidents involving religious hate crime were reported to prosecutors in 2016-17, which is a substantial increase of 14 per cent on the 592 charges reported in 2015-16.
And Renfrewshire remains one of the more tolerant areas in the west of Scotland, when compared to other councils.
Neighbouring Glasgow had the highest concentration of charges with 203 offences (30 per cent of total charges in Scotland) and the highest rate per head of population, with 33 per 100,000 residents.
Other council areas with higher numbers of religious hate crimes per head of population in 2016-17 are West Dunbartonshire (26 per 100,000 population), North Lanarkshire (21 per 100,000 population) and North Ayrshire (19 per 100,000 population).
While Renfrewshire’s rate is down at nine charges per 100,000 people, which puts the area in line with the average rate for the rest of Scotland’s 32 councils.
Roman Catholicism is the religion that was most often the subject of reported abuse, with 384 charges for 2016-17.
There were 165 charges related to Protestantism in 201617 and 113 charges involving derogatory conduct towards Islam.
Chief Inspector Martin Gallagher, Area Commander for Paisley, said: “I am pleased to see a marked reduction in the number of religiously aggravated offences across Renfrewshire.
“However we are not complacent, especially in relevance to recent events, and are maintaining close contacts with all sections of the community.”
Chief Superintendent Barry McEwan, Head of Safer Communities, added: “I would always encourage anyone who has been the victim of hate crime in any form, whether because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, ethnicity or any other individual circumstance, to come forward and report it to the police.”
While Mi n i s t e r for Community Safety Annabelle Ewing said: “I remain concerned that hate crimes are underreported and want to encourage anyone who has been subjected to such appalling acts to come forward to ensure that perpetrators can be dealt with appropriately.”