Hate crime is the term used to describe behaviour which is both criminal and rooted in prejudice. This means the law has been broken and the offender’s actions were driven by hatred towards a particular characteristic.

A non-crime hate incident is any incident perceived by the victim, or any other person, to be motivated either entirely or partly by malice and ill-will towards a person or group based on the victim’s actual or perceived membership of one or more of the characteristics, but which does not constitute a criminal offence. Non-crime hate incidents are not recorded against the other party.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act was implemented on 1 April 2024 and sends an important message to victims, offenders and wider society that hate crime will not be tolerated.

We want everyone targeted by hate crime, or those who witness it, to have confidence to come forward.  They can be assured that they will be treated with dignity and respect and that the circumstances they report will be fully investigated.

Recording is victim-focused and the process has been part of policing for many years. It helps us monitor tensions within communities, enabling appropriate police responses and helps to build community confidence.

If someone targets you, or someone else, because of a dislike or prejudice of your age, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or variations in sex characteristics then you should report it as a hate crime.

For more information, go to https://www.scotland.police.uk/advice-and-information/hate-crime/

What if you are not comfortable reporting the incident?

Sometimes victims or witnesses of hate crime don’t feel comfortable reporting the incident to the police. They might be more comfortable reporting it to someone they know.

Police Scotland works in partnership with a number of organisations and groups, to take reports, known as third party reporting centres. NHS Grampian is a Third Party Reporting Centre.

Third party reporting centres could be housing associations, victim support offices and voluntary groups. Staff have been trained to recognise hate crimes and help a victim or witness to submit a report to the police.

Third party reports can be made without giving your name. However, that might affect how much investigation we can do.

(Text source from Police Scotland)

What can NHS Grampian staff do?

We are promoting and encouraging staff to complete the 15-minute new eLearning module "Reporting hate crime: NHS Grampian as a third party reporting centre" . It has been developed to support victims or witness of hate crime who do not feel comfortable reporting the incident to the Police. The eLearning module will support you to recognise hate crime and the role of NHS Grampian as a Third Party Reporting Centre. 

Our ambition is that staff who completed the eLearning module will be able to confidently support victim or witness of hate incident/crime and report the incident via the Third Party online reporting system.

For more information, contact Equality and Diversity on gram.equalitydiversity@nhs.scot 

Click the image above or this link, to view the poster as a pdf

 

Published: 08/10/2024 14:00