This page is from APP, the official source of professional practice for policing.
The agreement of the common definition of hate crime in 2007 enabled the police to provide national data in a consistent format. Since April 2008, NPCC has regularly published data on True Vision to show the number of crimes that have been recorded by the police in each individual force area.
Hate crime forms part of the annual data requirement for the Home Office and is published as part of the national crime statistics.
Disaggregation of data
It is important that forces are able to analyse hate crime in their local area to identify trends, levels of community tension and to prepare intelligence-led deployments. They should also be able to understand other factors from the data such as offence circumstances or the age and gender of victims and offenders. Analytical products also enable managers to make more effective deployment decisions.
Performance
The extent to which hate crime is under-reported is set out in the Home Office (2018) Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2017/18; Statistical Bulletin. It shows that based on the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW), overall, 53% of hate crime came to the attention of the police. This shows there is still significant work to do in encouraging victims to come forward and recognising and reporting hate crimes.
Increasing the reporting and recording of hate crime
Performance should be monitored across all recorded hate crime categories. Analysing the data will, over time, indicate whether a rise or fall in hate crime reflects efforts to increase reporting or whether the incidence of hate crime has risen or fallen in a force area.
Race or religiously aggravated offences should not be used to measure performance as the offences account for only two of the strands of monitored hate crime.
Measuring repeat victimisation
The percentage of those who become repeat victims is the best measurement of effective support for people who suffer/are affected by hate crime. The measure will be influenced by police and partnership activities, and the advice and support given to those victims who seek police support.
Figures can be compared with previous years or quarters and against those of similar forces to help understand the effectiveness of responses.
Measuring victim satisfaction
The CSEW shows that victims of hate crime are less likely to be satisfied with the police response, both in terms of effectiveness and the fairness of the services offered. Forces should, therefore, understand local victim satisfaction levels.
Forces have set mechanisms to measure victim satisfaction, and by identifying those that are hate crimes means that satisfaction levels can be compared with the CSEW data, previous periods, victims of crime in general or similar forces.
Existing victim surveys can be supplemented by the targeted use of the following hate crime diagnostic tools.
Hate crime audits
A hate crime diagnostic tool developed with police and CPS involvement is available through True Vision. It will help forces to examine how criminal justice agencies manage hate crimes. The purpose is to provide a qualitative evaluation of service, and identify good practice and areas of concern. The audit enables agencies to examine policies, processes and operational practice to improve the service offered to victims. It will work across all five strands of monitored hate crime.
The hate crime audit is an objective of the Home Office (2018) Hate Crime Action Plan and is one in a series of diagnostic tools to help criminal justice system partners to meet their commitments to victims of crime.