Scottish Government Report Shows High Rate and Increase of Hate Crimes against Christians
Are the hate crimes against Catholics and Protestants football-related and therefore self-induced?
No, show the numbers, only the smaller percentage are, between 14 and 39%, depending on the year. This is shown by the following numbers:
In 2003, the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act introduced a new offence of "Aggravated Sectarianism". This created a new additional offence which could be added to an underlying charge such as 'assault' or 'breach of the peace', where it could be shown that the behaviour involved was "aggravated by religious prejudice" Since then the prosecuting authority in Scotland (Crown Office) has kept and occasionally analysed data on the impact of this charge.
The first such analysis was released in November 2004 and covered the period between 27 June 2003 and 4 September 2004. At that time 14% of religiously aggravated offences were football related. In 2004 (compare Sectarian stats 2004), Catholics were 6 times more likely to suffer such an attack than anyone else.
There have been a number of analyses published since then by the prosecuting authorities - the latest being 'Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland 2011 - 12' - which was what Archbishop Tartaglia was commenting on. This study shows that football related offences accounted for 31% of the total crimes committed.
Therefore it is evident, that over the last ten years between 69% - 86% of religiously aggravated offences have not been football related. Sources: www.scotland.gov.uk/socialresearch
In 2003, the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act introduced a new offence of "Aggravated Sectarianism". This created a new additional offence which could be added to an underlying charge such as 'assault' or 'breach of the peace', where it could be shown that the behaviour involved was "aggravated by religious prejudice" Since then the prosecuting authority in Scotland (Crown Office) has kept and occasionally analysed data on the impact of this charge.
The first such analysis was released in November 2004 and covered the period between 27 June 2003 and 4 September 2004. At that time 14% of religiously aggravated offences were football related. In 2004 (compare Sectarian stats 2004), Catholics were 6 times more likely to suffer such an attack than anyone else.
There have been a number of analyses published since then by the prosecuting authorities - the latest being 'Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland 2011 - 12' - which was what Archbishop Tartaglia was commenting on. This study shows that football related offences accounted for 31% of the total crimes committed.
Therefore it is evident, that over the last ten years between 69% - 86% of religiously aggravated offences have not been football related. Sources: www.scotland.gov.uk/socialresearch
http://www.scmo.org/articles/archbishop-tartaglia-responds-to-new-religious-hate-crime-statistics.html