Hate crime
What is hate crime?
Hate crime is any criminal offence committed against a person or property that is motivated by hatred of someone because of their:
- race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality or national origins
- religion
- gender or gender identity
- sexual orientation
- disability
- age
Hate crime can take many forms including:
- physical attacks such as physical assault, damage to property, offensive graffiti and arson
- threat of attack including offensive letters, abusive or obscene telephone calls, groups hanging around to intimidate, and unfounded, malicious complaints
- verbal abuse or insults - offensive leaflets and posters, abusive gestures, dumping of rubbish outside homes or through letterboxes, and bullying at school or in the workplace
(Definition from the Home Office website)
What is racist and religious crime?
A racist or religiously motivated crime is:
- Any incident which is perceived to be racist or religiously motivated by the victim or any other person.
What is a racially or religiously aggravated offence?
An offence is racially or religiously aggravated if:
- at the time of committing the offence, or immediately before or after doing so, the offender demonstrates towards the victim of the offence hostility based on the victim's membership (or presumed membership) of a racial or religious group; or
- the offence is motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility towards members of a racial or religious group based on their membership of that group.
Certain offences, including assault, harassment, criminal damage and public order offences can be prosecuted specifically as racially or religiously aggravated offences. The defendant faces a harsher sentence than if he or she were found guilty of a non-racial or religious crime.
What is homophobic crime?
Homophobic crime is any incident which is perceived to be homophobic or transphobic by the victim or by any other person [including the perpetrator].
Such crimes are based on prejudice, discrimination and hate, and they have no place in an open and democratic society.
We regard the homophobic element of any crime as a serious aggravating feature. We are determined to play our part in reducing crime by bringing offenders to justice.
What is disability hate crime?
Any incident which is perceived to be motivated by prejudice against an individual's actual or perceived disability by the victim or any other person.
Being made to feel unsafe or unwelcome by 'shunning' or rejection, violence, harassment or negative stereotyping, has a significant negative impact on disabled people's sense of security and wellbeing. It also impacts significantly on their ability to participate both socially and economically in their communities.
Safety and security, and the right to live free from fear and harassment, are fundamental human rights and we recognise the wider community impact of disability hate crime where it strikes at all disabled people by undermining their sense of safety and security in the community. For this reason we regard disability hate crime as particularly serious. Such crimes are based on ignorance, prejudice, discrimination and hate and they have no place in an open and democratic society.
What about crimes against older people?
We are committed to taking into account age equality issues in all our prosecution policies. Negative attitudes towards older people can be widespread in our society and these may be reflected in organizations that care for older people, whether in a domestic setting or in institutions. We are determined to play our part in challenging this.
The way in which hostility based on age is demonstrated towards older people may be less obvious than in cases of, for example, homophobia or racism, but it is hostility and must be challenged.
Crimes where an offender deliberately targets an older person because of his or her hostility towards older people will amount to an aggravating factor when prosecuting a crime.
