What is Hate Crime anyway?
Hate Crime is any crime that is perceived by the
victim or any other person as being motivated by hate, race, religion,
or belief, sexual orientation, disability, transgender. Even if the
person is not in the above categories but is perceived to be in one.
The Hate crime can be
Phone calls, texts, e mails, offensive mail.
Verbal abuse, physical abuse, or mental abuse.
Damage to property, or substances posted through
letterboxes or left on property.
Any graffiti.
Disability
Disability Hate Crime is not a separate offence but
is recognised under section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) 2003,
this imposes a duty on the courts to increase the sentence for any
offence aggravated by hostility towards the victim based on their
disability.
Nearly 9 out of 10 people with a
learning disability have been victims of hate crime (Mencap’s Living in
Fear)
Religious
There were 38,054 racially or religiously
aggravated offences in 2008/9 (statistics on Race and criminal justice
system 2006/7) There is also incitement to cause race hate and any
written material inciting any one to commit a criminal offence against
another race or group of people is against the law.
One in Five lesbian and gay people have
experienced a homophobic hate crime the in the last three years.
Three in four of those people
experiencing hate crimes did not report them to the police and only 6%
reported them to other people.
One in eight have been victims in the
last year.
One in six lesbian and gay people have
bee insulted and harassed in the last three years because they are gay.
Eight per cent of all black and ethnic
lesbian and gay people have experienced a physical assault as a
homophobic hate incident compared to 4% of all lesbian and gay people.
Here are some links that might help victims of Hate Crime.
Clicking on the logos will take you to their respective web sites.
