Assessing the Effectiveness of UK Police in Tackling Hate Crime

Essay 1
[Name of Student]
[Impact Report]
[Date of Submission]

Essay 2
Question#2
Introduction
As per the “Association of Chief Police Officers,” now known as the “National Police Chief’s
Council” the term hate crime refers to “any criminal offence or incident which is perceived by
the victim, or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based
on a personal characteristic” (justiceinspectorates.gov.uk, 2021). The definition in question was
adopted in 2007 by the “Criminal Justice Organisations” in order to ensure consistency while
overseeing legal operations associated with hate crimes. Using the following definition allows
for the justice system to focus on the perception of either the victim, a witness to the crime, or
the law enforcement officer dealing with the instance. In doing so the victim is no longer
obligated to offer the police justification or evidence to support the perceived hate crime.
The Government tends to monitor statistics and data attained by the police honing in on crimes
that have hostility and malice as the key driver, in particular towards personal characteristics like
religion, gender, race, disability, or ethnicity. The catalysts are noted to overlap when dealing
with cases of hate crime and incidents, with the only difference being whether or not the state of
affairs amounts to an offence. In order to identify the different encouraging elements, the police
use a set of markers while recording the instances and crimes, referred to as “flags”
(justiceinspectorates.gov.uk, 2021).
In recent years, the matter of hate crime has become more of an issue with the emergence of
liberation movements from minorities like the LGBTQ community. It is the responsibility of the
police to ensure that the legal legislature on hate crime is being exercised to their utmost
efficiency. Therefore, the real question becomes whether or not the police are able to effectively
deal with a rising matter of concern in the UK? The following paper aims to assess whether the

Essay 3
UK police are able to effectively tackle hate crime through assessing the laws in place, as well as
events that have transpired in recent years showcasing the competency of the police in the given
matter.
Frequency of Hate Crime in the UK
Figure 1 (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2021)
In the UK, hate crimes were noted to make up about 2% of the overall crime in 2018 and 2019.
The same frequency was noted in the years prior as well, as highlighted in the figure above.
From 2018 to 2019, the police department of England and Wales recorded over 100,000 hate
crimes, a 10% increase from 2017/18 (94,121) (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2021). This was
noted to be the lowest growth rate of this type of crime since 2013/14 when the growth rate was
5%. An increase was observed in all five sections monitored by the centre.

Essay 4
The surge observed over the past five years is believed to be due to a review conducted by the
“Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services” in 2014 and
improved police criminal records due to the removal of registered criminal police designations.
National statistics. He also believes that raising awareness of hate crimes can help better identify
such crimes (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2021). These improvements are seen as the main
drivers of the observed increase, but hate-crimes occurred after certain events, such as the EU
referendum in June 2016 and terrorist attacks in 2017, which are increasing in the short term.
Compared to last year, it has increased. It could reflect the actual increase in hate crimes logged
by the police department. Hate crimes tend to have multiple motivational factors (for one the
crime can be caused by hostility towards the victim's race and religion)
(assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2021). Therefore, the police not only recorded the total
number of hate crimes but also collected data on the number of each incentive. As a result, the
sum of the five motivation factors above exceeded 103,379. Registered by the police. It is
estimated that around 12% of hate crimes in 2018/19 are linked to multiple motivational factors,
most of which are hate crimes related to race and religion (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk,
2021).
Improved police records are believed to be the driving force behind the increase in hate crimes in
police registration. In addition, according to a survey, 91% of hate crimes in 2018/19 had
relations to public order and morals and morality or violence against people, and this situation
continues. Since these are two criminal groups that were previously thought to be at a relatively
high level of under-registration, improving criminal registration can have a greater impact than
other crimes (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2021). Figure 1 shows trends in indicators of
general violence, public order and morals, and moral violations since 2012/13, compared to all