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Home » News Centre » Press Releases » CPS racist and religious crime data published

CPS racist and religious crime data published

06/04/2004

The number of defendants dealt with by the Crown Prosecution Service for racially motivated crimes rose by 12.4 per cent last year according to a report published today. The report also includes figures for religiously aggravated crimes for the first time.

The figures are revealed in The CPS Racist Incident Monitoring Scheme Annual Report 2002 – 2003, which collects data on all racist incidents sent by the police to The CPS for prosecution. The latest increase follows a 20 per cent increase in the previous year. This is the fourth full year in which The CPS has gathered information on racially aggravated offences under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

The CPS brought racially aggravated cases against 3116 defendants, 442 more than 2001-2002 and 74 per cent of the total. 69 per cent of the charges resulted in guilty pleas and 15 per cent in convictions after contest. The overall conviction rate of 85 per cent is up slightly on 2001-2002.

Ken Macdonald QC, Director of Public Prosecutions said:

“I am reassured that the conviction rate remains at a high 85 per cent for this type of hate crime. We are working closely with police to build strong cases and continue to achieve a large number of guilty pleas at court.

“The CPS is going through a period of radical change, and since this last reporting period we have launched a public policy statement on racially and religiously aggravated crime and made rapid progress towards our commitment to adopting responsibility for charging decisions. The funding announced for witness care units across the country earlier this year will help and support witnesses to attend court and give evidence.

“Religiously aggravated crime is still a relatively new piece of legislation but with the work we are doing to communicate our policies I hope that members of all faith communities will have the confidence to come forward and report crimes directed against their beliefs.

“The CPS takes all these offences particularly seriously because they are motivated by discrimination and hate and represent an assault upon our diverse society. We shall continue to give them the highest priority.”

The 2002 – 2003 RIMS report includes, for the first time, information regarding religiously aggravated offences under Part 5 of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001. There were 18 cases finalised by 31 March 2003. These resulted in eight convictions on a religiously aggravated charge; seven outcomes of acquittal, discontinuance by The CPS or a bind over; two convictions on a basic (non aggravated) charge and one instance of pre-charge advice that there was insufficient evidence to proceed.

Due to this small number of finalised cases it is not possible to identify definite trends, but the predominant offences appear to be public order assault and harassment, which mirrors the finding in relation to racially aggravated offences.

Other findings in the report include:

  • In racially aggravated cases where charges were dropped, 42 per cent were dropped because of insufficient evidence, 26 per cent because of difficulties with witnesses and 17 per cent were not pursued on public interest grounds, the most common reason being that the defendant was being dealt with on more serious offences or was already serving a long prison sentence following a separate prosecution.
  • 62 per cent of racially aggravated prosecutions were dealt with in the Magistrates Court, the same as last year. 23 per cent were dealt with at the Crown Court, 15 per cent at the Youth Court.
  • 68 per cent of the 4029 offences prosecuted were charged for racially aggravated offences introduced in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the majority being racially aggravated public order offences.
  • 86 per cent of the cases in the report were identified as racist incidents by police and the remaining 14 per cent by The CPS when the file was received.

Electronic versions of the report are available on request and also at our website in the ‘Publications – Reports’ section, as well as The CPS policy on prosecuting racist and religious crime listed under ‘Publications – Prosecution policy and guidance – Racist and Religious Crime’.

  1. The Racial Incident Monitoring Scheme Annual Report 2002-2003 contains information compiled by the Crown Prosecution Service on prosecution decisions and outcomes in all cases identified by the police or CPS as racist incidents between 1 April 2002 and 31 March 2003. It provides the following information:
    • the number of racist incident defendant cases submitted by CPS areas during the reporting period;
    • CPS decisions on charges put by the police;
    • details of charges prosecuted;
    • details of charges dropped;
    • outcomes of charges prosecuted in the Magistrates Courts the Crown Courts and Youth Courts; and:
    • figures for religiously aggravated crimes
  2. For the purposes of the report, the police and CPS have used the definition provided in the Macpherson report which states that ‘a racist incident is an incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person’. A similar definition has been adopted by The CPS for religious incidents.
  3. Section 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 defined an offence as racially aggravated if the offender demonstrates racial hostility towards the victim at the time of, or before or after, committing an offence; or is motivated wholly or partly by hostility towards members of a racial group. It created specific offences of racially aggravated assault, criminal damage, public order and harassment. Additionally, section 153 of the Powers of Criminal courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 (replacing section 82 of the 1998 Act) imposes a duty on sentencing courts to treat evidence of racial aggravation as an aggravating feature, increasing the seriousness of the offence and the sentence to be imposed, in cases where offences are not specifically charged under the 1998 Act.
  4. The Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 amended the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to create new religiously aggravated offences. This provision came into effect on 14 December 2001. The offences capable of being charged as religiously aggravated offences can be divided into four broad categories:
    Assaults;
    Public Order offences;
    Criminal Damage;
    Harassment offences.
    The Act also introduced a requirement for courts sentencing offenders to treat more seriously any offence (other than one of the specific religiously aggravated offences) which was found to be religiously aggravated. (This mirrored the provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 relating to racially aggravated offences).
  5. The Racial Incident Monitoring Scheme Annual Report is available on The CPS website.
  6. Media enquiries to CPS Press Office on 020 7710 6088.