Antisemitism crimes - 168/18

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

We would like to know about antisemitic crimes and non-criminal antisemitic incidents recorded by Northumbria Police, with numbers of crimes and incidents individually broken down for each month of 2017.

 QUESTION 1

If Northumbria Police flags antisemitic crimes separately, please provide us with:

•           The total number of antisemitic crimes recorded in each month of 2017;

•           The total number of antisemitic violent crimes recorded, in each month of 2017, which fell into the Home Office categories of "homicide", "violence with injury" and "racially or religiously aggravated assault without injury";

•           The total number of antisemitic crimes, in each month of 2017, that resulted in charges being brought; and

•           The total number of antisemitic non-criminal incidents recorded in each month of 2017.

 QUESTION 1a

If Northumbria Police does not flag antisemitic crimes separately, please search for crimes and non-criminal incidents in your CRIS using the following whole keywords (i.e. not parts of words, but whole words, so that when you search for "Jew", entries containing "jewellery" are not returned). Since use of all the keywords might prevent you from answering this FOI request due to excessive cost, please only use the keywords (starting at the top) that can be used without incurring excessive cost.

 The keywords are:

•           Jew/Jews/Jewish/Judaism

•           Semite/Semitic/Semitism

•           Antisemite/Antisemitic/Antisemitism

•           Yid/Yids/Yiddo/Yiddish

In answering Q1 or Q1a, please use the following table format, with the following headings:

•           Month

•           Number of antisemitic crimes recorded

•           Number of antisemitic crimes involving allegations of violence*

•           Number of antisemitic crimes resulting in charges being brought

•           Number of antisemitic incidents reported

*For the purpose of this request, antisemitic crimes involving allegations of violence are those antisemitic crimes which fell into the Home Office categories of "homicide", "violence with injury" and "racially or religiously aggravated assault without injury".

 QUESTION 2

Please provide us with the name, e-mail address and telephone number of Northumbria Police’s single point of contact (SPOC) for antisemitic crime, or if Northumbria Police does not have a SPOC specifically for antisemitic crime, then please provide the name, e-mail address and telephone number of the SPOC for hate crime generally.

 QUESTION 3

If you are able to do so without incurring excessive cost, please could you disclose the number of Islamophobic hate crimes recorded in both 2016 and 2017, broken down by the religion of the victims?

 

In Response:

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.

 Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development and Safeguarding Departments of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.

 To note: The information provided at point 1 are crimes created between 01/01/2017 and 31/12/2017 where the crime has a faith motivated hate crime flag. These have been reviewed to establish which religion the crime was directed towards. Only those where it has been concluded the religion is Judaism have been included.

 It should be noted that data is correct at time of extraction but as it is possible for  hate flags to be added/removed at a later date this may change. The crimes which have resulted in a charge are correct as of 14/02/2017.

 Non-criminal incidents are those incidents which have a faith motivated hate qualifier code and no crime attached. Each incident has been reviewed to determine which religion the incident was directed towards. Those directed towards Judaism are included.

 To note -  charging is just one method of disposal open to the police so these figures may not reflect all positive action taken.

 2.  Supt Nicola Musgrove. Nicola.Musgrove.7263@northumbria.pnn.police.uk  Telephone number 101 ext. 64318.

 For point 3, the same data as above has been used and those counted are crimes where the religion the crime was directed towards was Islam. The victims religion is not a required field and therefore is only included where it is has been recorded in the crime or incident log. The unknown category includes those where the victim's religion is not clear or there is no victim associated with the crime.

 If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would expect that you to take into consideration the factors highlighted above so as not to mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.

 With the above noted I am able to disclose the located information to you as attached.

 Additionally I have provided links to the Northumbria Police website where information on reporting hate crimes, Safe Reporting Centres and  the types of hate crimes,  is published. 

https://www.northumbria.police.uk/advice_and_information/advice_for_victims_of_crime/hate_crime/report_hate_crime/ 

https://www.northumbria.police.uk/advice_and_information/advice_for_victims_of_crime/hate_crime/safe_reporting_centres/ 

https://www.northumbria.police.uk/advice_and_information/advice_for_victims_of_crime/hate_crime/types_of_hate_crime/