Indexed trend, April 2013 = 100
Police recorded hate crime
Figure 2.2: Indexed trends in the number of assaults with / without injury, public fear, alarm or distress( racially or religiously aggravated and non-aggravated equivalents) offences, April 2013 to March 2016
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
Assault and public fear, alarm or distress
Racially or religiously aggravated assault and public fear, alarm or distress
20
0
Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office
In the last Crime Statistics quarterly release, ONS stated“ Action taken by police forces to improve their compliance with the National Crime Recording Standard( NCRS) is likely to have resulted in the increase in the number of offences recorded. It is thought that recording improvements are more likely to affect relatively less serious violent offences and explains the larger increase in the sub-category " violence without injury " compared with " violence with injury "”. ONS has also been informed there has generally been little change in the volume of“ calls for service” related to violent crime compared with the previous year. Data from the Metropolitan Police Service showed that while police recorded violence against the person increased by 14 % in the year to March 2016 compared with the previous year, the number of“ calls for service” relating to violent crime decreased by 4 % over the same period. Calls for service refer to emergency and non-emergency calls from members of the public and referrals from partner agencies( such as education, health, and social services) for police to attend an incident or investigate a case. This, along with the evidence from the CSEW, suggests the rise in recorded violence against the person is largely due to process improvements rather than a genuine rise in violent crime.
The trends seen in Figure 2.2 fit with the improvements in crime recording as being the main factor for the increase in police recorded hate crimes over the last year. However, it is important to recognise that improved recording may not be the only reason, and there could be an element of a real increase in hate crime.
Race hate crime was the most commonly recorded strand of hate crime in all 44 police forces. For 43 forces, religious hate crime was either the third or fourth most commonly recorded strand, after either sexual orientation or disability( Appendix Table 2.01). Hate crime data by police force area for 2011 / 12 to 2015 / 16 can be found on the Home Office Open Data tables.
7