The increase in locally reported hate crimes is “slowing down” according to South Yorkshire Police (SYP), which is relaunching its strategy to tackle hate crimes.
The strategy states that last financial year’s data also shows a significant decrease in non-crime hate incidents.
However, national data shows an 8% increase in hate crimes in the UK, with 105,090 incidents recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2020 compared to 97,446 offences the previous year.
During the first quarter of the pandemic, there was a huge rise in racial attacks and violent hate crime against people of Chinese ethnicity and other East Asian groups, which is still continuing.
Police data shows a 300% increase in reported hate crimes towards British Chinese, East and South East Asians in 2020 compared to previous years.
According to SYP, crimes and incidents with a racially aggravating factor continue to be the most common across the force, representing over 70% of all hate crimes. However, efforts to raise awareness among other under-represented groups has resulted in large increases in reported hate crime from these groups.
The SYP Strategy focuses on four main points:
1. Working with partners and communities to prevent hate crime.
This will include SYP participating in events, and working with community groups, to raise awareness. work with schools, as well as local and national working. The aim is to raise awareness and look at innovative
ways to challenge attitudes.2. Listening to communities and partners, to build trust and confidence in order to increase reporting of hate crime.
Police will listen and act on feedback from victims and communities. They will continue to promote a variety of reporting mechanisms, such as True Vision and online reporting. Victims will be signposted to local and national support groups.
3. Robustly and effectively responding to and investigating hate crimes, supporting victims and seeking appropriate outcomes for offenders.
Staff will be provided with regular training on hate crime/incidents. They will also work with CPS to improve outcomes and ensure sentence uplifts are maximised.
4. Ensuring that there are effective internal and partnership governance structures in place to continually seek improvements in our response to hate crime.
SYP will analyse data to identify and better understand trends to improve their response.
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.
To report Hate, call 101 or in an emergency call 999. You can also report online here.
