Statistical Bulletins are prepared by staff in Home Office Statistics under the Code of Practice for Official 

## Hate Crimes, England And Wales, 2013/14

Statistics and can be downloaded from both the UK Statistics Authority 
 
website and the Home Office Byron Creese and Deborah Lader website:  
 
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisa tions/home-office/about/statistics Kevin Smith (Ed.) 
 
 
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ISSN 1759-7005 ISBN 978-1-78246-516-4 

## Police Recorded Crime

In accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, statistics based on police recorded crime data have been assessed against the Code of Practice for Official Statistics and found not to meet the required standard for designation as National Statistics. The full assessment report can be found on the UK Statistics Authority website. Alongside the Crime in England and Wales, Year Ending March 2014 release, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a progress update on actions taken in addressing the requirements set out by the Authority. Further information is provided in the Hate Crimes Data Quality section (Annex A). For further information about police recorded crime statistics, please email: 
crimestats@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk or write to: 
Home Office Statistics, 1st Floor, Peel Building, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF. 

 

## Home Office Responsible Statistician:

David Blunt, Chief Statistician and Head of Profession for Statistics Contact via crimestats@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk This statistical bulletin is produced to the highest professional standards and is free from political interference. It has been produced by statisticians working in the Home Office Statistics Unit in accordance with the Home Office's Statement of Compliance with the Code of Practice for Official *Statistics,* which covers our policy on revisions and other matters. The Home Office Statistics Unit works under the direct line management of the Home Office Chief Statistician, who reports to the National Statistician with respect to all professional statistical matters. 

 

## Key Points

 In 2013/14, there were 44,480 hate crimes recorded by the police, an increase of five per cent 
compared with 2012/13, of which: 
 
37,484 (84%) were race hate crimes; 
 
4,622 (10%) were sexual orientation hate crimes; 
 
2,273 (5%) were religion hate crimes; 
 
1,985 (4%) were disability hate crimes; and 
 
555 (1%) were transgender hate crimes. 
 It is possible for one hate crime offence to have more than one motivating factor which is why the 
above numbers sum to more than 44,480 and 100 per cent. 
 There were increases in all five of the monitored hate crime strands (race, religion, sexual 
orientation, disability and transgender identity) between 2012/13 and 2013/14. 
 Much of the increase in race and religious hate crime is likely to be due to a rise in offences in the 
months immediately following the murder of Lee Rigby in May 2013. Additionally, the police may have improved their recording of crime and the identification of motivating factors in an offence 
over the last year.  
 It is less clear whether the increase in sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity hate 
crime reflects a real rise in hate crime or improved police identification of these offences. The 
increase across all three strands may suggest improved identification is a factor.  

## 1 - Introduction 1.1 - Overview

This publication provides information on the number of hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2013/14. Further information on hate crimes including data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and figures from the Ministry of Justice can be found in 'An Overview of Hate Crime in England and Wales', released in December 2013.  

## Hate Crimes Recorded By The Police

Hate crime is defined as 'any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic.' This common definition was agreed in 2007 by the police, Crown Prosecution Service, Prison Service (now the National Offender Management Service) and other agencies that make up the criminal justice system. There are five centrally monitored strands of hate crime: 

 race or ethnicity;  religion or beliefs;  sexual orientation;  disability; and  transgender identity. 
Hate crimes are a subset of notifiable crimes that are recorded by the police and make up around one per cent of all crimes (based on police recorded crime figures for 2013/14, see 'Crime in England and Wales, Year Ending March 2014'). In the process of recording a crime, police can flag an offence as being motivated by one or more of the five monitored strands above (for example, an offence can be motivated by hostility towards the victim's race and religion). Figures in this bulletin show both how many hate crime offences the police recorded, and how many motivating factors these offences covered (for more information see Annex A). Around two per cent of hate crime offences in 2013/14 are estimated to have involved more than one motivating factor1. 

## Hate Crimes And Racially Or Religiously Aggravated Offences

There are some offences in the main police recorded crime collection which can be recorded as racially or religiously aggravated. These are defined by statute and constitute a set of offences which are distinct from their non-racially or religiously aggravated equivalents (the full list of these is shown in Table 1). These racially or religiously aggravated offences are by definition (see above) hate crimes.  
However, the hate crime collection on which the majority of the bulletin is based has a wider coverage of race and religious hate crime. This is because the hate crime flag described above can be applied to any offence, not just those for which there is a separate racially or religiously aggravated offence for the police to record against. Therefore, the number of race or religious hate crimes in this bulletin will be greater than the total number of police recorded racially or religiously aggravated offences.  

|                      | Racially or Religiously Aggravated                                | Non-Racially or Religiously Aggravated Equivalent   |
|----------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------|
| Offence code Offence | Offence code                                                      | Offence                                             |
| 8P                   | Racially or religiously aggravated assault with injury            | 8N                                                  |
| 105B                 | Racially or religiously aggravated assault without injury         | 105A                                                |
| 8M                   | Racially or religiously aggravated harassment                     | 8L                                                  |
| 9B                   | Racially or religiously aggravated public fear, alarm or distress | 9A                                                  |
| 58J                  | Racially or religiously aggravated other criminal damage          | 58A                                                 |
| 58B                  | Criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling               |                                                     |
| 58C                  | Criminal damage to a vehicle                                      |                                                     |
| 58D                  | Other criminal damage                                             |                                                     |

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office
 

## Racist Incidents Recorded By The Police

This release contains figures on the number of racist incidents reported to police forces in England and Wales (excluding British Transport Police). A 'racist incident' is any incident, including any crime, which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race. Racist incidents include notifiable offences, non-notifiable offences (e.g. some types of anti-social behaviour), incidents that were not subsequently recorded as crimes and 'no crimes'2. Conversely, certain race hate crimes may not have been initially recorded as racist incidents if the racial motivation was not immediately apparent. For these reasons, the racist incidents total does not match the race hate crimes total. 

 
 
available that determines that no notifiable crime has been committed; 3) The crime is part of a crime that has already been recorded; 4) An incident has been recorded as a crime by mistake; 5) The crime was one of assault (not more serious than actual bodily harm) and there is clear evidence that the offender acted in self defence. 

## 2 - Hate Crimes 2.1 - Prevalence And Trends

There were 44,480 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2013/14, an increase of five per cent compared with 2012/13 (42,236 offences; see Table 2).  

|                                            |         | Numbers and percentages   | England and Wales, recorded crime   |
|--------------------------------------------|---------|---------------------------|-------------------------------------|
| Hate crime strand                          | 2011/12 | 2012/13                   | 2013/14                             |
| % change                                   |         |                           |                                     |
| 2012/13 to                                 |         |                           |                                     |
| 2013/14                                    |         |                           |                                     |
| Race                                       | 36,008  | 35,889                    | 37,484                              |
| 4                                          |         |                           |                                     |
| Religion                                   | 1,621   | 1,573                     | 2,273                               |
| 45                                         |         |                           |                                     |
| Sexual orientation                         | 4,364   | 4,261                     | 4,622                               |
| 8                                          |         |                           |                                     |
| Disability                                 | 1,753   | 1,843                     | 1,985                               |
| 8                                          |         |                           |                                     |
| Transgender                                | 310     | 361                       | 555                                 |
| 54                                         |         |                           |                                     |
| Total number of motivating factors         | 44,056  | 43,927                    | 46,919                              |
| 7                                          |         |                           |                                     |
| Total number of hate crimes                | N/A     | 42,236                    |                                     |
| 44,480                                     |         |                           |                                     |
| 5                                          |         |                           |                                     |
| Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office |         |                           |                                     |
|                                            |         |                           |                                     |

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office Table notes: 
1. 

A breakdown of 2011/12 data by police force area is available from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hatecrimes-england-and-wales-2011-to-2012--2 
Table 2 also shows the number of hate crimes broken down by monitored strand. It is possible for a crime to have more than one motivating factor (for example an offence may be motivated by hostility towards the victim's race and religion). Thus, as well as recording the overall number of hate crimes, the police also collect data on the number of motivating factors by strand as shown in Table 2.  
In 2013/14, of the 44,480 hate crimes: 

 37,484 (84%) were race hate crimes; 
 4,622 (10%) were sexual orientation hate crimes;  2,273 (5%) were religion hate crimes;  1,985 (4%) were disability hate crimes; and  555 (1%) were transgender hate crimes. 
There were increases in all five of the centrally monitored strands between 2012/13 and 2013/14 (Table 2).  
The Office for National Statistics has attributed recent increases in some categories of police recorded crime to improvements in police recording rather than a real increase in offences3. For example, there was a six per cent increase in the overall number of police recorded violence against the person offences between 2012/13 and 2013/14 while other sources of violent crime trends (including the Crime Survey for England and Wales and NHS hospital admissions for assault4) fell over the same period. Around a third (30%) of police recorded hate crime is for violence against the person offences (see Section 2.3 for more detail), so any improvements in the recording of these offences may be a factor in the trend in overall hate crime. An additional cause of the rise in hate crime may be an improved identification of motivating factors behind an offence. That is, of all the violent offences recorded in 2013/14, the police may have identified and flagged a higher proportion as hate crimes than in previous years. However, there is evidence to suggest that the increase in race and religious hate crimes may be partly due to higher levels of hate crime following the murder of Lee Rigby, rather than solely due an improvement in the identification of offences as hate crimes. This is discussed in more detail below. 

## Race And Religious Hate Crimes

The number of race hate crimes increased by four per cent (up 1,595, to 37,484 offences; Table 2) between 2012/13 and 2013/14. Over the same period, religious hate crime increased by 45 per cent 
(up 700 to 2,273 offences; Table 2).  
Together, racially and religiously motivated hate crime accounted for around three-quarters of the increase in overall hate crime seen in the last year. A contributing factor behind the rise in these two strands of hate crime is likely to be an increase in offences following the murder of Lee Rigby in May 2013. As mentioned in the Introduction, the police have the option to record some offences as racially or religiously aggravated. While not covering all hate crime offences, in practice the majority of race or religious hate crimes that the police record will come under one of these aggravated offence codes. The data the Home Office receives from the police in the main police recorded crime return for these offences are available on a monthly basis5, allowing the trend in these offences to be seen around the time of the Lee Rigby murder. Figures 1 and 2 show the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences for public fear alarm or distress and assault with/without injury (which together accounted for around 90% and 70% of all race and religious hate crime respectively, see Section 2.2). As shown in both charts, there was an increase in the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences in the immediate time period following the Lee Rigby murder in May 2013. The number of offences then returned to similar levels seen in 2012/13 and 2011/12. Without the increase in offences seen between May and July 2013, the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences would have been at a similar level to the previous two years. Due to the fact the majority of race hate crimes are recorded in these aggravated offences available to the police, the overall level of race hate crimes will be affected similarly.  
Furthermore, because the majority of hate crimes recorded by the police are motivated by race (84%), hate crimes motivated by this strand tend to drive overall trends in hate crime. Therefore, much of the five per cent increase seen in overall hate crime between 2012/13 and 2013/14 (Table 2) is likely to be due to the increase seen in racial or religiously aggravated offences following the Lee Rigby murder.  
The Home Office Data Hub (see Section 2.2 for more detail about the Data Hub) provides supplementary information on race and religious hate crimes, which covers all notifiable offences (rather than just assault with/without injury and public order offences) for a subset of forces. A similar pattern is observed as that seen for the racially or religiously aggravated offences described above; the number of offences increased sharply in May, June and July 2013. The number of hate crimes then fell, with little difference between 2012/13 and 2013/14 for the months of October to March (data not shown).  
In addition, in June 2013 the Metropolitan Police (who are not included in the Data Hub data) reported there had been an increase in Islamophobic hate crime in the wake of the Lee Rigby murder6. 

Appendix Tables 1.01 and 1.02 show that Metropolitian Police recorded a 45 per cent increase in religious hate crimes between 2012/13 and 2013/14,from 631 to 915 offences. As the Metropolitan Police accounted for around 40 per cent of all religious hate crime in England and Wales in 2012/13 
and 2013/14, changes in the level of offences in this police force area can drive the national trend.  
The pattern of higher levels of race and religious hate crime in May, June and July 2013 compared with the same period in the previous year is not observed for the other strands of hate crime (sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity; data not shown). Race hate crime was the most commonly recorded strand of hate crime in all 44 police forces. For the majority of forces (89%), religious hate crime was either the third or fourth most commonly recorded strand (Appendix Table 1.02). The Home Office also collects data on the number of racist incidents (that is notifiable offences as well as incidents which do not amount to a crime in law) recorded by police, more detail on these figures is included in Section 3. These data are only available by financial year, so cannot be used to assess the effect of external events on the number of incidents recorded.  

## Sexual Orientation, Disability And Transgender Identity

Transgender identity hate crime saw the biggest percentage increase of the five strands between 2012/13 and 2013/14 (54%) while disability and sexual orientation hate crime increased by similar proportions to race hate crime (both by 8%). Disability and transgender hate crime are the only two strands which have increased each year since 2011/12 (Table 2).  
It is less clear whether increases in disability, sexual orientation and transgender hate crime reflect a real rise in these offences or whether they reflect improved identification and recording practices by the police. The increase across all three strands may suggest improved identification of hate crime is a factor, but genuine increases cannot be ruled out. In the majority of police forces (89%), sexual orientation hate crime was the second most commonly recorded hate crime while in 82 per cent of forces transgender identity hate crime was the least commonly recorded hate crime (Appendix Table 1.02).  

## 2.2 - More Detailed Hate Crime Data From The Home Office Data Hub

The Home Office are currently implementing a new data collection system called the Data Hub which is designed to streamline the process by which forces submit data. The Home Office Data Hub will replace the current system with automated capturing of record level crime data via direct extracts from forces' own crime recording systems. As a result the police will also be able to provide more detailed information to the Home Office which will allow a greater range of analyses to be carried out. The migration to the new system is ongoing and for forces providing data via the Data Hub, it is possible to exploit this richer data and conduct a more in depth analysis of hate crime offences.  
Eighteen police forces7 (accounting for 23% of the total number of hate crimes recorded in 2013/14) 
provided suitable hate crime data through the Data Hub for 2013/14; although notably this did not include the Metropolitan Police whose data accounts for around one quarter of police recorded hate crime. It is therefore important to note that the analysis in this section may not be representative of all forces in England and Wales. 

## Hate Crimes By Type Of Offence

Using the Data Hub it is possible to examine which specific types of offence have been flagged as hate crimes. The available data show that for the 18 police forces analysed (Appendix Table 1.03): 

 
fifty-five per cent of hate crimes were public order offences, with the vast majority of these 
(98%) being public fear, alarm or distress; 
 
thirty per cent were violence against the person offences, of which 34 per cent were violence 
with injury and 66 per cent were violence without injury offences; and 
 
ten per cent were criminal damage/arson offences while the remaining five per cent were 
other notifiable offences such as theft and sexual offences.  
By way of comparison, Figure 3 shows that in 2013/14, public order, violence against the person and criminal damage/arson offences accounted for four per cent, 18 per cent and 14 per cent of all police recorded crime offences respectively (Crime in England and Wales, Year Ending March 2014).  
                                                 
 
Figure 4 shows the proportion of offence types for each monitored strand. Public order offences and violence against the person were the two most common offence types associated with hate crime for all strands except religion. For religious hate crime, while public order offences were the most common, the second most common offence type was criminal damage/arson. The monitored strands with the highest proportions of violence against the person were sexual orientation (42%) and disability (40%). 

As mentioned above, the category of violence against the person can be broken down further into violence with injury and violence without injury. Examples of violence with injury offences are assault with intent to cause serious harm and assault with injury, while violence without injury includes offences such as harassment and assault without injury. In 2013/14, 34 per cent of violent hate crimes were violence with injury (Appendix Table 1.03). In comparison, around half of all police recorded violence offences were violence with injury from the 18 Data Hub forces (a similar figure to the proportion across all forces). The proportion of violence against the person offences which were violence with injury varied by hate crime strand: 46 per cent of sexual orientation hate crime was violence with injury, higher than all other monitored strands which varied between a quarter (transgender) and a third (race). 

## Outcomes

The Data Hub also provides information on the outcomes of offences flagged as hate crime. The new outcomes framework replaced the detections framework in April 2013. The move from detections to outcomes is a significant change, with an emphasis on greater transparency on how all crimes recorded by the police are dealt with. The previous focus on detections (i.e. crimes resolved via a sanction against the offender, such as a charge, summons or caution) gave a partial picture of the work police do to investigate and resolve crime. Data for the full outcomes framework will not be 
 
available until 2014/15 so analysis below is constrained to outcomes that were available to the police under the old detections framework. For more information on outcomes see Crime Outcomes in England and Wales 2013/14. Analysis of the 18 forces who supplied suitable data via the Data Hub shows that (also see Appendix Table 1.04): 

 Public order hate crime offences were less likely to be dealt with by a charge / summons or a 
caution than public order offences for overall crime. Thirty-seven per cent of public order hate crime offences resulted in a charge or summons and seven per cent resulted in a caution (compared with 40% and 10% respectively for overall crime). 
This is partly due to the mix of offences; 98 per cent of hate crime public order offences in 2013/14 were for public fear, alarm or distress. For overall crime, this figure is lower, at 74 per cent, with 26 per cent being for other offences against the state and public order. These offences tend to have a higher charge / summons rate than public fear, alarm or distress, hence the higher charge / summons rate for crime overall. For public fear, alarm or distress, there is little difference in the charge / summons rates between hate crime and overall crime. 

 In contrast, violence against the person hate crime offences were more likely to be dealt with by 
charge / summons than overall violence (33% compared with 26%). Cautions were less likely to be used for violent hate crime offences (5%) than overall violence (11%).  
 Fourteen per cent of criminal damage hate crime offences resulted in a charge or summons and 
four per cent resulted in a caution (compared with 9% and 6% respectively for overall crime). 

## 3 - Racist Incidents

A 'racist incident' is defined as any incident, including any crime, which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person. The coverage is wider than the race hate crime collection as non-notifiable offences, as well as notifiable offences, are included. In 2013/14, there were 47,571 racist incidents recorded by the 43 police forces in England and Wales (racist incident data excludes the British Transport Police). The number of racist incidents recorded by police has remained relatively stable for the past three years. Prior to this the number of racist incidents fell between 2009/10 and 2011/12 (Figure 5; Appendix Table 1.05). 


## Further Information

'Hate Crimes, England and Wales, 2011/12' is available from: 
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crimes-england-and-wales-2011-to-2012--2 'An Overview of Hate Crimes in England Wales' (wider coverage using data from the Ministry of Justice and the Crime Survey for England and Wales) is available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/an-overview-of-hate-crime-in-england-and-wales Other sources of hate crime data from a number of different organisations (including the Association of Chief Police Officers, Stonewall and the Crown Prosecution Service) can be found here: 
http://www.report-it.org.uk/hate_crime_data1 (figures published by ACPO are based upon calendar year data and also include Northern Ireland). 

The True Vision website contains more information about hate crime and how to report it: 
http://www.report-it.org.uk/home Information about 'Challenge it, Report it, Stop it: The Government's Plan to Tackle Hate Crime' can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/challenge-it-report-it-stop-it-a-plan-to-tacklehate-crime, and the latest update can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/307624/HateCrimeActio nPlanProgressReport.pdf Hate crime statistics published by the Scottish and Northern Irish governments can be found here: http://www.psni.police.uk/index/updates/updates_domestic_and_hate_motivation_statistics.htm http://www.copfs.gov.uk/media-site/latest-news-from-copfs/773-hate-crime-in-scotland-2013-14 (figures published by the Scottish Government are based on the number of offenders charged, rather than police recorded crime). The Crown Prosecution Service website also carried information about hate crime, including policy and guidance and performance information, which can be found here: 
http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/equality/hate_crime/index.html A report by the Law Commission which considers whether hate crime offences should be extended to cover all five on the monitored strands can be found here: http://lawcommission.justice.gov.uk/docs/lc348_hate_crime.pdf Copies of other Home Office publications (including crime statistics releases prior to April 2012) are available from: 
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/series/crime-statistics#publications Copies of crime statistics publications from April 2012 are available from the Office for National Statistics website:  
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Crime+and+Justice This includes the *User Guide to Crime Statistics*, a useful reference guide with explanatory notes regarding the issues and classifications that are key to the production and presentation of the crime statistics. The dates of forthcoming publications are pre-announced and can be found via the UK National Statistics Publication Hub:  https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements 
  

## Annex A - Hate Crimes Data Quality Introduction

In January 2014, the UK Statistics Authority published its assessment of ONS crime statistics. It found that statistics based on police recorded crime data, having been assessed against the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, did not meet the required standard for designation as National Statistics. The UK Statistics Authority published a list of requirements for these statistics to regain the National Statistics accreditation. Some of the requirements of this assessment were to provide more detail on how data sources were used to produce these statistics, along with more information on the quality of the statistics. 

Additionally, there was also a requirement to provide information on the process used by police forces to submit and revise data, and the validation processes used by the Home Office. In order to ensure that this publication meets the high standards required by the UK Statistics Authority, details are provided below. 

## Data Sources And Validation Process

Hate crime data are supplied to the Home Office by the 43 territorial police forces of England and Wales, plus the British Transport Police. Forces either supplied the data monthly via the Home Office Data Hub or on an annual basis in an aggregated return. For forces with data on the Data Hub, the Home Office extracts the number of offences for each force which have been flagged by forces as having been motivated by one or more of the monitored strands. It is then possible to derive the count of offences and the number of monitored strands covered. In the aggregate return, police forces submit both the total number of hate crime offences (that is a count of the number of unique offences motivated by one or more of the five monitored strands) and the number of monitored strands (or motivating factors) associated with these offences. The second figure is supplied broken down by monitored strand so an offence motivated by hostility to race and religion would be counted twice, once under each of the strands. At the end of each financial year the Home Office carry out a series of quality assurance checks on the data collected from the police forces (either by aggregate return or from the Data Hub). These checks include: 

 
Looking for any large or unusual changes in hate crimes from the previous year. 
 
Looking for outliers. 
 
Checking that the total number of hate crimes is higher than the total number of offences. 
Where these two figures were the same, the force was asked to confirm they were recording 
multiple hate crime strands. Police forces are then asked to investigate these trends and either provide an explanation, or resubmit figures where the reconciliation identifies issues. 
The data are then tabulated by monitored strand and year (2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14) and sent back to forces for them to verify. At this stage they are asked to confirm in writing that the data they 
submitted are correct and if they are not, then they have the opportunity to revise their figures. 
 ISBN:978 1 78246 516 4