Scotland's largest police force has been dealing with about four racist incidents a day, according to statistics.

Strathclyde Police said it recorded 1,495 racist incidents between April 2001 and March 2002, leading to 1,916 race-related charges.

About 75% of these cases involved charges of racially-aggravated harassment or conduct.

The force said that 40% of incidents took place in a shop or business premises, and about one in eight was reported by asylum seekers.

Victims are being urged to come forward

In most of the cases, the offenders were white males.

Police chiefs said they managed a 60.4% detection rate which compared with 43.9% for all crimes.

The Strathclyde force has set up a database allowing it to collate and analyse date on race crimes.

Chief Constable Willie Rae said: "While these figures do not make for very comfortable reading, I am confident that we are finally beginning to see the true extent of racist crime in the force area.

"More and more people feel able to come forward and contact the police or report these incidents through third parties and that is very encouraging."

Councillor Bashir Maan, convener of Strathclyde Joint Police Board. He said: "I am pleased that we are at last beginning to see the full extent of racist incidents in the force area, however, I think that many racist incidents are still not being reported.

40 ethnic backgrounds

"I would urge all victims to come forward and to report to the police every time they suffer a racist taunt, an attack or damage to their property.

"That is the only way to deal with the racist and get rid of racism. The police are there to help and their help must be sought."

A detailed breakdown of the figures reveals:

• some 2,105 people from over 40 different ethnic backgrounds lodged complaints

• a total of 1916 race-related charges were recorded

• more than a quarter (27.5%) of the charges were for petty assault, 16.9% were for race-related vandalism

• almost half of complainers were of Pakistani origin (47.6%), followed by people of Indian origin (14.8%) and of white origin (7.1%)

• in 4.1% of the incidents the complainers were serving police officers

• most complainers were men (78.2%) and predominantly in the 21 to 50 age range

• there were 2,427 offenders or suspects recorded in connection with racist incidents of whom 95.4% were white and 85% male

• the month with most reported racist incidents was October 2001 (174) and the month with the least was February 2002 (90).