On the 14th of March the coalition government published an action plan to reduce hate crime across the country. The Home Office defines Hate crime ‘as any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a personal characteristic’.
Although hate crime is hugely under reported the Home Office collects data on the number of crimes being committed.
In 2010, 48,127 hate crimes were recorded by police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Of these:
- 39,311 were racist crimes
- 4,883 were based on sexual orientation
- 2,007 were religious hate crimes
- 1,569 targeted disabled people;
- 357 targeted transgender people.
As the Home Office says ‘All crime is wrong, but that which is motivated by hatred of a characteristic of the victim – whether it’s their race, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity, perceived disability or anything else – is particularly corrosive’.
Therefore the government has released an action plan which aims to tackle hate crime by challenging the attitudes underpinning this crime, encouraging victims to report incidents and also improving the ways that cases are managed, victims are supported and offenders are brought to account.
The government is encouraging the statutory and voluntary sectors to develop their own solutions to tackle the specific problems in their local areas.
For more information see Challenge it, Report it, Stop it: The Government’s Plan to Tackle Hate Crime 2012. Click here.
