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Homophobic & Transgender hate crimes - 527/18

Date Responded 20 June 2018

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:

I'd like to request a comprehensive set of data on Homophobic and Transgender Hate Crimes for the last 11 calendar years.

Specifically I'd like to receive:

A) On each sheet the number of crimes where there is present on the crime records a branch flag for Homophobic Hate Crime (HO or HR); for each of the calendar years from 2007 - 2018; further broken down by:

Sheet 1. MAJOR AND MINOR CRIME CLASSIFICATION – The main category and subcategory of the crime, e.g. Major – 11: Violence Against the Person; Minor – 110: Homicide; or 111: Violence with Injury; or 112: Violence without injury

Sheet 2: AREA – The area in which the offence occurred, which may be categorized depending on the police force by: Area, or Borough, or Operational Command Unit (sometimes listed as SUMMARY X OCU)

Sheet 3: SELF DEFINED ETHNICITY OF SUSPECT – e.g. A1: Asian – Indian; A2: Asian – Pakistani

Sheet 4: SELF DEFINED ETHNICITY OF VICTIM – as above

Sheet 5: GENDER OF SUSPECT – the gender of the suspect, usually Female, Male or Unknown/unrecorded

Sheet 6: GENDER OF VICTIM – as above

Sheet 7: AGE OR AGE GROUP – the age or age group of the suspect and victim

Sheet 8: CLEAR UP METHOD – whether Undetected, Charge or Summons, Caution or Community Resolution (Clear Up Method is the categorization used for outcomes, in most police forces prior to April 2014)

Sheet 9: OUTCOME - the expanded outcomes list introduced by the Home Office to most forces in April 2014 (e.g. number of charges or conviction)

B) For A) to be repeated except searching for a branch flag for Transgender Hate Crime (HT) instead of homophobic hate crime

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 Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.

With the below in mind, I am able to disclose the located information to you as attached.

To note the first full year that we are able access searchable data for victims is from 2010 therefore we have provide from that date forward.

The minor crimes are the category breakdown of the major crimes.

Additionally to add some context to the subject matter I can advise as below.

 

-          Hate crime is something which has been under-reported for a long time, but now more people have trust and confidence to come forward and report it.

-          There has also been improvements/changes nationally in how crime is recorded in general which has seen percentage increases across all crime types. This includes hate crime.

-          There is a better understanding among officers about what constitutes a hate crime and the additional support that can be provided to victims of this type of crime. 

-          People are more confident in coming forward to report hate crime. This is down to a lot of work we have done with community groups to educate them around hate crime and improve trust and confidence in reporting.

-          There are also a number of different ways to report hate crime for victims. We have Safe Reporting Centres across the force as well as via third sector agencies such as True Vision and Tell Mamma and also online

-          The increasing number of individuals that are being charged to court after the report of a hate crime should reassure victims that we will take action if they report an incident to us and that we take their report seriously.

-          It is wholly unacceptable to abuse someone because of their race, faith, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age and we will stand together to stop this sort of prejudice.

 

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

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Disclaimer

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

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