Wednesday August 16, 2006
Published on SocietyGuardian.co.uk
HOW MUCH hate crime is there in Britain? How many people report it? How many people don't report it? And how do the police treat it when it is reported?
The simple answer is nobody knows, although Victim Support, a UK charity dedicated to helping victims of crime, has tried to answer at least some of these questions in a new report published today. The authors of the report, Crime and Prejudice, set out to interview victims of hate crime to establish what their experiences were.
"You can never know how much hate crime there is because it is under-reported," explains Victim Support press officer Lucy Winter. "There is no clear picture because there is no systematic collection of hate-crime data that is easily comparable." Racially motivated hate crime data has been collected since 1986, but other hate crime data is not uniformly recorded or even recognised in official figures.
Peter Dunn, head of research and development at Victim Support, led the research, which was funded by Co-operative Insurance. "We were trying to establish four things," he says. "First, the extent and nature of hate crime in England and Wales - trying to find out what happens to people. Secondly, how do we as support services work, and do we need to change the way we operate? Thirdly, to find out what services are available for victims of hate crime, and lastly, how to improve our own service."
The report's authors interviewed 107 victims of hate crime in detail about their experiences. The interviewees came from four areas. Oldham, Stoke-on-Trent and Cardiff were selected because they are racially mixed and are all asylum dispersal areas. Lambeth in south London was chosen because it has a high lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population.
Hate crime, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers, is "criminal conduct motivated by prejudice". It is crime fuelled by prejudice against a person's religion, sexuality, ethnicity, disability or gender.
According to Dunn, it can take the form of verbal abuse, bullying, harassment, assault, arson, vandalism or even murder. Last year the racist killing of 18-year-old Anthony Walker in Liverpool and the gay-bashing - to death - of 24-year-old Jody Dobrowski, in London, were two cases that hit the headlines.
"The experience of hate crime can be life changing," says Dunn. "Being targeted for who you are sets hate crime apart from other types of crime. It can have a deep impact on the victim's culture, identity and self-esteem."
Effects listed in the report include fear, depression, trauma for the family's children and financial loss.
"My house was burned down," said one interviewee. "We had to close my shop and I lost a lot of money," said another. One other interviewee simply shut down emotionally: "I thought, if I was going to get harassed when I go out, then I'd rather stay inside. It got to the point where I stopped working and started claiming benefits."
Many interviewees said hate crime was a "fact of life" and something they experienced every day. "There is nothing I can do about it," said one. Another said: "I keep my mobile phone in my hand all the time so I can call the police because I know they will attack me."
The report's authors were not only interested in the experience of the actual crime. They wanted to know about the experience of reporting it.
"There's a big problem with under-reporting," says Winter. As one respondent put it: "Let's be blunt about it, there would be retaliation and I would get no support."
A negative attitude from the police was a big reason for not reporting hate crime. "What affected me more [than the crime] was the attitude of the police officer, who took it so lightly," said one respondent. "Nothing was ever done, nobody went any further, nobody wanted to find out what actually happened," said another.
Both responses echo a common perception that police have a "nothing we can do" approach to low-level hate crime.
Of those who did report the crime, the report says only one in five felt they were well supported by the police. Dunn, however, cautions at taking that statistic at face value: "It's a qualitative survey," he says, "the numbers are too small to draw any concrete conclusions".
As well as talking to victims of hate crime, Victim Support interviewed other support agencies such as gay and lesbian support groups, religious groups and race equality partnerships.
The report found many areas where agencies working together "could do better".
"We need to outreach better," says Dunn. "That means more leaflets and posters in places like mosques, libraries or GP surgeries. And translated into minority languages." Building better and more effective community contacts is also important, he says.
Support organisations also need to work more closely with each other, says Dunn, as well as with the police to ensure more prosecutions.
Third-party reporting - where a third party acts as liaison between the victim and the police - could also help boost reporting of hate crime, says Dunn. "Not one of our interviewees had heard of it," he says, "which is a shame because a lot of work has gone into it in the past few years."
Perhaps predictably, the report calls for greater understanding from the police and crown prosecution service to record hate crime and to respond to the needs of victims. It also demands greater investment in support services for hate crime victims, calls for more "joined up" services, and greater promotion of services to at-risk communities. A national hate-crime telephone helpline would be a big step forward, says Dunn, although he admits such a service is "a long way away".
In the meantime, adds Dunn, there is still a lot of work to be done on making hate crime a more reportable and recordable offence.
"Hate crime damages whole communities," he says, "not just the individuals who are targeted. It symbolises all the worst aspects of prejudice, and it creates a climate of fear."
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