How many convictions there have been under section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, broken down by (a) financial year and (b…

The question asks for figures on the number of ‘convictions’ under Section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act. However, the figure that is normally counted in the statistical bulletins on criminal proceedings is ‘offences with a charge proved’. This is because convictions may include a number of charges and the database on convictions records only the main charge (the charge that attracts the most severe penalty). If we were to provide the number of convictions, this is unlikely to provide a full measure of the use of the Act. For example, in 2011-12, while there were 369 convictions in Scotland where the main charge was religiously aggravated, the total charges proved with a religious aggravation was 518.
The following table therefore provides figures on the number of charges proved under Section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 in each of the three procurator fiscal federations for the last eight financial years. (With effect from April 2012, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service aggregated their previous
11 areas into three larger geographical areas known as federations, namely North, East and West.)
Charges proved with a religious aggravator recorded, by Procurator Fiscal area, 2004-05 to 2011-12
PF Area
2004-05
2005-06
2006-07
2007-08
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12
North
9
10
13
12
21
20
15
27
East
22
26
34
35
45
48
53
77
West
169
297
308
295
356
291
313
414
Total
200
333
355
342
422
359
381
518
Source: Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings Database.

The totals were published in November 2012 in the statistical bulletin Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2011-12 (in Table 2 of the additional datasets section). Further information on the recording of offence aggravators can therefore be found in that bulletin at:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/Datasets/DatasetsCrimProc/OffAgg1112.
Figures on the number of religiously aggravated offences that resulted in a conviction in 2011-12 were also published in “Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland 2011-12” (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/11/7685/0). It should be noted that the cases examined in this publication are not directly comparable to those provided in the above table. While the above table counts the number of charges proved in 2011-12 for religiously aggravated offending, the report is based on the number of religiously aggravated charges that occurred in 2011-12. Charges that occur in one year may not be proved in court until the following year.