Hate crimes double in six years to hit record high

The sister of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox has said language used on social media and in Parliament must change after hate crime levels hit a record high.   

Police in England and Wales recorded 103,379 hate crimes in 2018/19 – 10% more than the previous year and more than double the 2012/13 figure of 42,255.

The sister of Mrs Cox, who was murdered by far-right extremist Thomas Mair in 2016, said there is a ‘frustration across the country’ of people feeling ‘disillusioned’, which ‘breeds into dislike and animosity towards people who are not like you’. 

Giving evidence at the Commons Home Affairs Committee after the new Home Office figures were published, Kim Leadbeater said: ‘The nature of our discourse in public life in Parliament and elsewhere – that needs to change.

‘The role of the media needs to be looked at. The role of social media needs to be looked at.

‘Until we start looking at influences in society, hate crime is not going to get any better.’

She said she found it ‘very upsetting when we see some of the scenes that we have seen recently in Parliament of bad behaviour again across the political spectrum’.  

Catherine Anderson, chief executive of the Jo Cox foundation, told the committee she was ‘very concerned’ about a possible increase in physical attacks in light of the ‘potentially very imminent general election’ after incidents recently seen at the polls.

She said: ‘We cannot really quantify or predict the nature of that threat but we know that is a threat and we are very concerned about the future impact of this on our public life.’ 

Part of the increase could reflect a ‘real rise’ in reports of crime, the Home Office said.

Race remained the main trigger in the majority of reported offences at 76% of the total, an 11% rise in the last year from 71,264 to 78,991.

But there were also jumps in the number of transgender identity hate crimes – up by 37% in the last year from 1,703 to 2,333 – and a 25% hike in offences motivated by sexual orientation (14,491, up from 11,592).

Part of the increase could reflect a ‘real rise’ in reports of crime, the Home Office said

Disability hate crimes rose by 14% from 7,221 to 8,256; and offences triggered by religion rose by 3% from 8,339 to 8,566, the data showed.

The increases are partly because of improvements in the way crimes are recorded, but there were spikes seen after events such as the EU referendum and the terrorist attacks in 2017, as well as a rise in reports in the summer of 2018 and January this year.

The report added: ‘Part of the increase over the last year may reflect a real rise in hate crimes recorded by the police.’

Over half (54%) of the hate crimes recorded by the police were for public order offences, a third (36%) involved violence while 5% were recorded as criminal damage and arson.

Around 12% of the offences were estimated to have more than one motivation, with the majority of these being both race and religion.

Hate crimes are defined as those perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice of a characteristic.

Five strands are monitored nationally: race or ethnicity; religion or beliefs; sexual orientation; disability; and transgender identity.

But some police forces log other types of hostility under hate crime, including reports of misogyny and incidents where victims were targeted because of their age or membership of an ‘alternative sub-culture’, such as goths

In 2018/19 there were 103.379 hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales, an increase of 10 per cent over the previous year