Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service

5th Survey of Compliance with Lord Advocate's Guidelines for the Reporting of Racist Crime

Compliance with Lord Advocate's Guidelines for the Reporting of Racist Crime

4th Survey - 2007 Statistics

Racist crime survey report

Fifth Monitoring Exercise Conducted by The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service of Police Compliance with the Lord Advocate's Guidelines for Investigation and Reporting of Racist Crime and the Procurator Fiscal's Compliance with the Prosecution Policy

1. COPFS and ACPOS are committed to monitoring the way racist crime in Scotland is reported and processed. This fifth survey looks at police reports submitted to procurators fiscal about racist crime as well as the decisions made in these cases by procurators fiscal. It does not examine conviction rates or sentencing, because these are the responsibilities of the court.

2. In 2007 we reviewed our survey methodology to ensure greater statistical accuracy and to allow us to examine reasons behind some of the findings.

3. For this survey we identified a target sample of 315 reports concerning racist crime submitted from across Scotland during a random three-month period in 2007 and collated data from individual case monitoring forms. Thereafter, we examined a sub-sample of these cases in more detail to give us a wider view of day to day compliance with policy and procedures. We specifically selected those cases where the data suggested they may have been reported and/or dealt with contrary to policy and guidelines. The findings are set out below.

4. We propose to conduct a further survey in 2009.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

5. This fifth survey found that court proceedings were taken by the Procurator Fiscal in 95% of the sample cases. In deciding whether to prosecute the Procurator Fiscal is required to take account of all the facts and circumstances that are known to him or her in each case and can decide not to prosecute where
prosecutorial guidance suggests this is appropriate and where specific guidance does not limit discretion to do so. A range of alternatives to prosecution are available to the prosecutor, including warning letters (which were issued to the accused in 1% of the sample) and referral of children under 16 to the Children's Reporter (which took place in less than 1% of the sample) . The Procurator Fiscal may be unable to bring a prosecution because there was insufficient admissible evidence to do so and this happened in less than 1% of the sample cases.

6. We found a significant increase in the number of cases where the accused pled guilty (from 29% in 2006 to 63% in 2007) and in the vast majority of these cases (93%) the accused pled guilty to the whole of the racial element of the charge. In the very few cases where the racial element was deleted or withdrawn (7%), the main reasons were either a change to the evidence given by a witness during the trial or a lack of proof because an essential witness failed to attend. These findings suggest a high level of accuracy in police reporting and prosecution decision-making.

7. Most accused were reported by the police as 'accelerated' cases (90%); that is, they were either detained in police custody before appearing in court for the first time, or were released on an 'undertaking' to appear in court on a specified date, or the report was submitted for early consideration by the Procurator Fiscal. These findings demonstrate a high level of compliance with the Lord Advocate's Guidelines. In the few cases (10%) where the case was not reported in this way, the most common reason was that the victim was a police officer or other professional or that the accused had not been traced.

8. The percentage of police reports giving information about the victim's perception as to whether an incident was racist remains consistently high at 84%. Similarly there was a consistently high level of reports (79%) that noted the impact of the crime on the victim. In the cases where there was no note of the victim's perception or impact, our findings suggest that it was because the victim was a police officer or other professional. In some cases, however, the monitoring forms made it difficult to identify the reason for not giving information about the victim's perception or the impact of the crime.

9. The percentage of police reports that identified interpreting or translation needs fell in 2007 from 87% to 79% and 87% to 57%, respectively. It was difficult to identify from the police reports or monitoring forms the reasons for the reduced numbers. However, our findings show that there were no cases where an interpreter or a translation was required later in proceedings where these had not been noted by the police in their report. This suggests that police reports are accurately identifying and reporting language needs where these needs exist.

10. There was a significant drop in the percentage of police reports that gave information about any cultural or religious issues relevant to an accused, victim or witness; this fell from 64% to 34%. Again, the reasons for this were not clear; however, there were no cases where these issues were later identified where they had not already been reported by police.

11. In general, this fifth survey demonstrates continuing high levels of compliance with the Lord Advocate's Guidelines to Chief Constables and prosecution policy and significant consistency since the monitoring system was introduced in 2002. The survey findings are reported back to procurators fiscal and police to allow the quality of reporting and prosecution to be further improved.

STATISTICS FOR 2007 FROM THE MONITORING EXERCISE CONDUCTED BY THE CROWN OFFICE AND PROCURATOR FISCAL SERVICE

Totals

· In 98% of the sample reports, the police had recorded a racially aggravated charge or statutory racial aggravation

· In the remaining 2% of the reports, the police had recorded a racial element to the incident.

The Charges

· 13% of reports contained a section 50A(1)(a) charge of racially aggravated harassment

· 78% contained a section 50A(1)(b) charge of racially aggravated behaviour

· 28% contained a section 96 racial aggravation accompanying another charge

(these add up to more than 100 because some cases contained both an aggravation and a charge.)

· The Procurator Fiscal revised the police charge in 27% of cases

Proceedings

· No proceedings were taken in 2% of cases

· Warning letters were issued to an accused in 1% of cases

· A further 2% of cases were dealt with by another alternative to prosecution - for example a referral to local authority diversion or mediation schemes or the Children's Reporter

· Court proceedings were taken in 95% of cases.

· A plea of guilty was accepted by the procurator fiscal in 63% of cases - and in only 7% the plea resulted in the racial element being deleted either in part or in full.

Content of Police Reports

· 90% of reports were submitted to the Procurator Fiscal in accordance with the Lord Advocate's Guidelines - that is either as a custody case or an undertaking or accelerated case.

· The victim's perception of any racial motivation to the incident was noted in 84% of reports - the same level as last year.

· 79% of reports noted the impact of the incident on the victim - 56% also noted the impact on the victim's family or community

· 76% of reports noted the interpreting needs of either a victim, witness or accused person - 46% of these also noted the particular language and dialect

· 57% of reports noted the translation needs of either a victim, witness or accused person

· 34% of reports indicated some ethnic or religious issues which may be relevant to proceedings

Explanation of Charges

By race crime we mean:

·
any charge of racially aggravated harassment and behaviour in terms of Section 50A of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 (referred to as "Charge"); or

·
any racial aggravation in terms of Section 96 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (referred to as "Aggravation").

In order not to distort the findings, the surveys do not consider the few cases where the reported charge is in terms of Section 18 of the Public Order Act 1986.

Victims and Diversity Team

Policy Division

Crown Office

March 2009