Watch: Disability Hate Crime Webinar

Watch Disability Equality Scotland host a webinar discussion on Disability Hate Crime during National Hate Crime Week.

During this event we heard from Police Scotland about what hate crime is, how it manifests, how to make a report and why it is important to do so. In addition, attendees discussed their own experiences of hate crime and reporting, and provided suggestions for how the process could be improved. 

The ‘Hate Crime in Scotland, 2020-21’ report indicates that there has been an increase in the number of charges reported in 2020-21 compared to 2019-20 for all categories of hate crime. The number of hate crimes relating to disability had increased by 14% to 448. This is the highest number of charges reported since the legislation creating this aggravation came into force in 2010, and the report estimates that around 97% of disability hate crime goes unreported.

Disability Equality Scotland polled its members on how confident they would feel to report a hate crime. Over half of the respondents (52%) stated that they would not feel confident to make a report of disability hate crime.

The webinar was recorded live on Tuesday 12 October 2021 from 1:30pm to 3:00pm, and was supported by captioning, as well as British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters. BSL support was provided live by Sign Language Interactions and BSL Communications Services.