Hate Crime, England and Wales,
2015/16
Hannah Corcoran and Kevin Smith

Statistical Bulletin 11/16
13 October 2016

 Important information
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 2015 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 B).
For further information about police recorded crime statistics, please email:
crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk or write to:
Crime and Policing Statistics, 1st Floor Peel Building, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF

Home Office Responsible Statistician
Damon Wingfield, Head of Crime and Policing Statistics
Contact via crimeandpolicestats@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 Crime and Policing
Analysis Unit. It has been produced in accordance with the Home Office’s statement of compliance
with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, which covers Home Office policy on revisions and other
matters. The Chief Statistician, as Head of Profession, reports to the National Statistician with respect
to all professional statistical matters and oversees all Home Office Official Statistics products with
respect to the Code, being responsible for their timing, content and methodology.

i

 Contents
Page
Conventions used in figures and tables ............................................................................................ iii
List of figures and tables ..................................................................................................................... iv
Key points

....................................................................................................................................... 1

1

Introduction .................................................................................................................. 2
1.1

2

Overview .............................................................................................................. 2

Police recorded hate crime ......................................................................................... 4
2.1

Prevalence and trends......................................................................................... 4

2.2

Hate crimes by type of offence ............................................................................ 8

2.3

Hate crime outcomes......................................................................................... 10

2.4

Transferred or cancelled records....................................................................... 14

3

Racist Incidents ......................................................................................................... 16

Annex A

Hate crime and the EU Referendum......................................................................... 17

Annex B

Hate crime data sources and quality ....................................................................... 21
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 21
Police recorded crime data sources and validation process ....................................... 21

Further Information ............................................................................................................................. 23

ii

 Conventions used in figures and tables
Table abbreviations
‘0’

indicates no response in that particular category or less than 0.5% (this does not apply when
percentages are presented to one decimal point).

‘-’

indicates that for police recorded crime percentage changes are not reported because the base
number of offences is less than 50.

‘..’

indicates that for police recorded crime that data are not available.

Percentages
Row or column percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding.
A percentage may be quoted in the text for a single category that is identifiable in the tables only by
summing two or more component percentages. In order to avoid rounding errors, the percentage has
been recalculated for the single category and therefore may differ by one percentage point from the
sum of the percentages derived from the tables.

iii

 List of tables and figures
1

Introduction .................................................................................................................. 2

Table 1

The five racially or religiously aggravated offences and their non-aggravated
equivalents .................................................................................................................... 3

2

Police recorded hate crime ......................................................................................... 4

Table 2

Hate crimes recorded by the police by monitored strand, 2011/12 to 2015/16 ............ 4

Figure 2.1

Number of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police by
month, April 2013 to March 2016 .................................................................................. 6

Figure 2.2

Indexed trends in the number of assaults with/without injury, public fear, alarm
or distress (racially or religiously aggravated and non-aggravated equivalents)
offences, April 2013 to March 2016 ............................................................................... 7

Figure 2.3

Distribution of offences flagged as hate crimes, 2015/16 ............................................. 8

Figure 2.4

Breakdown of hate crimes and overall recorded crime by selected offence
types, 2015/16 ............................................................................................................... 9

Figure 2.5

Breakdown of hate crime by selected offence types and monitored strand,
2015/16 ........................................................................................................................ 10

Figure 2.6

Percentage of racially or religiously aggravated offences and their nonaggravated equivalents recorded in 2015/16 resulting in charge/summons, by
offence type ................................................................................................................ 11

Figure 2.7

Percentage of selected offences dealt with by a charge/summons, offences
recorded in 2015/16, 24 forces .................................................................................... 13

Figure 2.8

Percentage of selected offences resulting in charge/summons, by strand,
offences recorded in 2015/16, 24 forces .................................................................... 13

Figure 2.9

Median number of days taken to assign an outcome, hate crime flagged and
non-hate crime flagged offences, offences recorded in 2015/16, 24 forces .............. 14

3

Racist incidents ........................................................................................................ 16

Figure 3.1

Number of racist incidents recorded by the police (excluding British Transport
Police), England and Wales, 2009/10 to 2015/16 ...................................................... 16

Annex A

Hate crime and the EU Referendum......................................................................... 17

Figure A1

Number of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police, 2013 to
2016 ............................................................................................................................ 18

Figure A2

Indexed trends in the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences and their
non-aggravated equivalents recorded by the police, April 2014 to August 2016 ....... 19

Figure A3

Number of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police, 31
forces, May to Aug 2016 ............................................................................................. 20

iv

 Key points
Police recorded crime


In 2015/16, there were 62,518 offences recorded by the police in which one or more hate crime
strands were deemed to be a motivating factor. This was an increase of 19 per cent compared
with the 52,4651 hate crimes recorded in 2014/15.



The number of hate crime offences in 2015/16 for the five centrally monitored strands were as
follows:



49,419 (79%) were race hate crimes;



7,194 (12%) were sexual orientation hate crimes;



4,400 (7%) were religious hate crimes;



3,629 (6%) were disability hate crimes; and



858 (1%) were transgender hate crimes.

It is possible for a hate crime offence to have more than one motivating factor which is why the
above numbers sum to more than 62,518 and 100 per cent.



There were increases in offences recorded for all five of the monitored hate crime strands
between 2014/15 and 2015/16.



As stated by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), action taken by police forces to improve
their compliance with the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) has led to improved
recording of crime over the last year, especially for violence against the person offences.
Together with a greater awareness of hate crime, and improved willingness of victims to come
forward, this is likely to be a factor in the increase in hate crimes recorded by the police in
2015/16 compared with the previous year.



As this publication covers hate crimes recorded by the police between 1 April 2015 and 31
March 2016, the number of offences will not be affected by any increase in hate crime following
the EU Referendum which took place on 23 June 2016. However, an Annex is provided in this
publication, which examines levels of hate crime (specifically racially or religiously aggravated
offences) around the EU Referendum.



There was a sharp increase in the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences
recorded by the police following the EU Referendum. The number of racially or religiously
aggravated offences recorded by the police in July 2016 was 41% higher than in July 2015.

1

Figure differs to that previously published (52,528) due to small changes in the volume of crimes identified by
forces as hate crimes.

1

 1 Introduction
1.1 OVERVIEW
This publication provides information on the number of hate crimes recorded by the police in England
and Wales in 2015/16. Additionally, information on levels of hate crime around the time of the EU
Referendum which took place on the 23 June 2016 is presented in Annex A. This includes data that
have not been reconciled with police forces.
Additional information on the number of hate crimes reported by respondents to the Crime Survey for
England and Wales (CSEW) was last published in Hate crime, England and Wales, 2014/15 for
combined survey years 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15. Due to the low volume of hate crime incidents
in the sample survey, the figures are not sufficiently robust to report for a single year of the CSEW.
The analysis has not been updated this year to avoid an overlap in the years included in the threeyear dataset.
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 two
per cent of such crimes (excluding fraud, based on police recorded crime figures for 2015/16, see
Crime in England and Wales, Year Ending March 2016).
In the process of recording a crime, police can flag an offence as being motivated by one or more of
the five monitored strands2 listed 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 B).
Further information on how the police record hate crime can be found in the Hate Crime Operational
Guidance3 publication. Around five per cent of hate crime offences in 2015/16 are estimated to have
involved more than one motivating factor, the majority of these were hate crimes related to both race
and religion.4
Hate crimes and racially or religiously aggravated offences
There are some offences in the main police recorded crime collection which have a specific racially or
religiously motivated element. 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
2

Forces may collect wider hate crime data; these are not centrally monitored by the Home Office.
http://www.report-it.org.uk/files/hate_crime_operational_guidance.pdf
4
Estimation based upon data from 24 forces who supplied data to the Home Office Data Hub.
3

2

 Introduction

Table 1). These racially or religiously aggravated offences are by definition 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 police can identify other offences as hate crimes, not just
those for which there is a separate specific 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.
Table 1: The five racially or religiously aggravated offences and their non-aggravated
equivalents
Racially or religiously aggravated offences

Non-aggravated equivalent offences

Offence
Offence
code

Offence
Offence
code

8P

Racially or religiously aggravated assault with injury

8N

Assault with injury

105B

Racially or religiously aggravated assault without injury

105A

Assault without Injury

8M

Racially or religiously aggravated harassment

8L

Harassment

9B

Racially or religiously aggravated public fear, alarm or distress

9A

Public fear, alarm or distress

58J

Racially or religiously aggravated other criminal damage

58A

Criminal damage to a dwelling

58B

Criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling

58C

Criminal damage to a vehicle

58D

Other criminal damage

Source: Home Office Counting Rules.

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 can include notifiable offences, non-notifiable offences (e.g. some types of anti-social
behaviour), incidents that were not subsequently recorded as crimes and ‘cancelled or transferred
records’ (formerly referred to as no crimes).5 Conversely, certain race hate crimes may not have been
initially recorded as racist incidents if the racial motivation was not immediately apparent and the hate
motivation was therefore added after the crime was recorded. For these reasons, the racist incidents
total does not match the race hate crimes total.
Since April 2016, the Home Office has ceased collecting racist incident data from the police. The
collection was stopped as the hate crime time series is now sufficiently established, with data for five
years included in this publication. Furthermore, from April 2016 the police forces of England and
Wales have begun supplying additional data around the religion of victims of religious hate crimes.
Ending the racist incident collection manages the burden on the police in supplying data to the Home
Office. Therefore this is the last year in which official statistics will be published on racist incidents.

5

A cancelled or transferred record occurs when the police have originally recorded an offence, but have
subsequently determined that the crime did not take place, or was recorded in error.

3

 2 Police recorded hate crime
2.1 PREVALENCE AND TRENDS
There were 62,518 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2015/16, an increase
of 19 per cent compared with 2014/15 (52,465 offences; see Table 2).
Table 2: Hate crimes recorded by the police by monitored strand, 2011/12 to 2015/16
Numb ers and percentages

Hate crime strand

England and Wales, recorded crime
% change
2014/15 to
2013/14
2014/15
2015/16
2015/16

2011/12

2012/13

35,944

35,845

37,575

42,862

49,419

15

Religion

1,618

1,572

2,264

3,293

4,400

34

Sexual orientation

4,345

4,241

4,588

5,591

7,194

29

Disability

1,748

1,911

2,020

2,515

3,629

44

313

364

559

607

858

41

Total number of motivating factors

43,968

43,933

47,006

54,868

65,500

19

Total number of offences

N/A

42,255

44,577

52,465

62,518

19

Race

Transgender

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office.
See Bulletin Table 2 for detailed footnotes.

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. For this
reason, the sum of the five motivating factors in the above exceed the 62,518 offences (and the
percentages exceed 100%).
The number of hate crime offences in 2015/16 for the five centrally monitored strands were as follows:



49,419 (79%) were race hate crimes;



7,194 (12%) were sexual orientation hate crimes;



4,400 (7%) were religious hate crimes;



3,629 (6%) were disability hate crimes; and



858 (1%) were transgender hate crimes.

There were increases in all five of the centrally monitored strands between 2014/15 and 2015/16
(Table 2) and there has been an upward trend in all strands of hate crime since 2012/13.

4

 Police recorded hate crime

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has attributed recent increases in some categories of police
recorded crime to improvements in police recording rather than a real increase in offences.6 For
example, there was a 27 per cent increase in the overall number of police recorded violence against
the person offences between 2014/15 and 2015/16 while the Crime Survey for England and Wales
estimates for violent crime showed no significant change in levels of violence compared with the
previous survey year.
Additionally, work undertaken by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and published in July 2015
indicated little change in the level of violent incidents coming to the attention of the police at the same
time that the number of recorded offences was increasing. As a third (33%) of police recorded hate
crime is for violence against the person offences, any changes in recording practices affecting levels
of overall violence 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, with police
forces more robustly monitoring and recording hate crime since the Paris attacks in 2015.
There has been some evidence and anecdotal reports7 to suggest that the increases in race and
religious hate crimes may be partly due to higher levels of hate crime following specific highly
publicised incidents (or trigger events8,9). These are discussed in more detail below.

Race and religious hate crimes
The number of race hate crimes increased by 15 per cent (up 6,557, to 49,419 offences; Table 2)
between 2014/15 and 2015/16. Over the same period, religious hate crime increased by 34 per cent
(up 1,107 to 4,400 offences; Table 2).
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 the aggravated offence codes
shown in Table 1.
The data the Home Office receives from the police in the main police recorded crime return for these
racially or religiously aggravated offences are available on a monthly basis10, allowing the in-year
trend in these offences to be seen around the time of particular incidents. Figure 2.1 shows, for
example:

 a peak in July 2013 in racially or religiously aggravated offences following the Lee Rigby
murder,
 a rise in racially or religiously aggravated offences in July 2014 followed by a fall in August,
suggesting little effect of the conflict in Israel and Gaza in July/August 2014,
 an apparent rise in hate crime following the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January 2015 (see below
for further information),
 that despite reports claiming an increase in hate crime following incidents such as the release of
the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (referred to as the Jay
report) in August 2014 or the Paris attacks in November 2015, there is no clear spike around
these times.
Other factors may influence the short-term movements in the number of offences recorded by the
police, such as improvements in police recording, so trends should be considered with caution.
6

http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yeare
ndingmar2016
7
For example, there was a rise in racially and religiously aggravated offences following the murder of Lee Rigby
in May 2013 – see https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crimes-england-and-wales-2013-to-2014
8
https://cst.org.uk/news/blog/2015/02/05/antisemitic-incidents-report-shows-record-uk-high-in-2014
9
http://news.met.police.uk/news/met-s-response-to-rise-in-islamophobic-hate-crime-in-london-128144
10
Although data from the main police recorded crime collection are sent to the Home Office broken down by
month, the data are only quality assured with police forces on a quarterly basis.

5

 Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2015/16

Figure 2.1: Number of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police by
month, April 2013 to March 2016
4,500

Lee Rigby murder
4,000
3,500

2,500
2,000

Charlie Hebdo
shooting

Conflict in Israel
and Gaza

1,500
1,000
500

0

Publication
of Jay report
(Rotherham)

Paris
attacks

Apr-13
May-13
Jun-13
Jul-13
Aug-13
Sep-13
Oct-13
Nov-13
Dec-13
Jan-14
Feb-14
Mar-14
Apr-14
May-14
Jun-14
Jul-14
Aug-14
Sep-14
Oct-14
Nov-14
Dec-14
Jan-15
Feb-15
Mar-15
Apr-15
May-15
Jun-15
Jul-15
Aug-15
Sep-15
Oct-15
Nov-15
Dec-15
Jan-16
Feb-16
Mar-16

Number of offences

3,000

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office

The improvement in the recording of offences by the police was mentioned above as a possible factor
for the increase in police recorded hate crime. The increase in racially or religiously aggravated
offences between February and July 2015 seen in Figure 2.1 matches the general trends seen in
police recorded violence and public fear, alarm or distress offences over the same time period.
Furthermore, there is an increase in both aggravated and non-aggravated offences at the beginning of
2015. It is therefore possible that improvements in police recording may have been a more important
factor in the increase in racially or religiously aggravated offences following the Charlie Hebdo
shooting, rather than the actual incident.
These trends can be seen in Figure 2.2, where an indexed chart shows assault with/without injury,
public fear, alarm or distress and their racially or religiously aggravated equivalent offences. As can be
seen, aggravated and non-aggravated offences have tracked each other relatively well over the last
three years. As shown later in Section 2.2, 89 per cent of overall hate crimes are for violence against
the person (which includes assault with/without injury) and public fear, alarm or distress offences.

6

 Police recorded hate crime

Figure 2.2: Indexed trends in the number of assaults with/without injury, public fear, alarm or
distress (racially or religiously aggravated and non-aggravated equivalents) offences, April
2013 to March 2016
180
160

Indexed trend, April 2013=100

140
120
100
80
Assault and public f ear, alarm or distress
60
Racially or religiously aggravated assault and public f ear, alarm or distress
40
20
0

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office

In the last Crime Statistics quarterly release, ONS stated “Action taken by police forces to improve
their compliance with the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) is likely to have resulted in the
increase in the number of offences recorded. It is thought that recording improvements are more likely
to affect relatively less serious violent offences and explains the larger increase in the sub-category
"violence without injury" compared with "violence with injury"”. ONS has also been informed there has
generally been little change in the volume of “calls for service” related to violent crime compared with
the previous year. Data from the Metropolitan Police Service showed that while police recorded
violence against the person increased by 14% in the year to March 2016 compared with the previous
year, the number of “calls for service” relating to violent crime decreased by 4% over the same period.
Calls for service refer to emergency and non-emergency calls from members of the public and
referrals from partner agencies (such as education, health, and social services) for police to attend an
incident or investigate a case. This, along with the evidence from the CSEW, suggests the rise in
recorded violence against the person is largely due to process improvements rather than a genuine
rise in violent crime.
The trends seen in Figure 2.2 fit with the improvements in crime recording as being the main factor for
the increase in police recorded hate crimes over the last year. However, it is important to recognise
that improved recording may not be the only reason, and there could be an element of a real increase
in hate crime.
Race hate crime was the most commonly recorded strand of hate crime in all 44 police forces. For 43
forces, religious hate crime was either the third or fourth most commonly recorded strand, after either
sexual orientation or disability (Appendix Table 2.01). Hate crime data by police force area for 2011/12
to 2015/16 can be found on the Home Office Open Data tables.

7

 Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2015/16

Sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity
In 2015/16, there were 7,194 sexual orientation hate crimes, 3,629 disability hate crimes and 858
transgender identity hate crimes.
As mentioned above for race or religiously aggravated offences, recording improvements are likely to
be a factor in the increase in offences recorded by the police. This is also the case for increases in
disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity hate crime. In addition to ONS’s statement
previously given, anecdotal evidence provided by some forces have mentioned there have been
drives to improve the reporting and the recording of hate crime, as well as further training of staff. The
increase across all three strands since 2014/15 (44% for disability, 29% for sexual orientation and
41% for transgender) may suggest improved identification of hate crime as a factor, but it is possible
that some of the increase may be due to an increase in actual criminal hate behaviour. These could be
genuine increases in hate crimes or increases in the numbers of victims coming forward to report a
hate crime.
For 40 police forces, sexual orientation hate crime was the second most commonly recorded hate
crime. In the majority (41) of forces transgender identity hate crime was the least commonly recorded
hate crime (Appendix Table 2.01).

2.2 HATE CRIMES BY TYPE OF OFFENCE
Figure 2.3 and Appendix Table 2.02 shows the types of offences recorded as hate crimes:

 fifty-six per cent of hate crimes were public order offences11;
 thirty-three per cent were violence against the person offences, of which around a quarter (26%)
were violence with injury with the remaining three-quarters (74%) being violence without injury
offences; and
 seven per cent were criminal damage/arson offences, while the remaining four per cent were
other notifiable offences (Figure 2.3).
Figure 2.3: Distribution of offences flagged as hate crimes, 2015/16

4%
7%

Public order
Violence against the person

33%

Criminal damage and arson

56%

Other notif iable of f ences

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office

11

Includes: public fear, alarm or distress, violent disorder and other offences against the State or public order.

8

 Police recorded hate crime

By way of comparison, Figure 2.4 shows that in 2015/16, the proportion of overall crime recorded by
the police accounted for by these categories was very different:

 public order offences accounted for five per cent of all notifiable offences compared with 56 per
cent of hate crime; and
 violence against the person accounted for 26 per cent of all offences compared with a third of
hate crimes.
Figure 2.4: Breakdown of hate crimes and overall recorded crime by selected offence types,
2015/16
60
50

Percentage

40
30
20
10
0
Public order

Violence against the Criminal damage and
person
arson
Hate Crime

Other notif iable
of f ences

Overall recorded crime

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office

A smaller proportion of violent hate crimes tend to result in injury compared with overall violent crime:
around a quarter (26%) of police recorded violence hate crimes were violence with injury (Appendix
Table 2.02) compared with 43 per cent of overall violent offences (Table A4 in Crime in England and
Wales, Year ending March 2016).
Figure 2.5 shows the proportion of offence types that made up each monitored strand. The two most
common offence types associated with hate crime for all strands were public order offences and
violence against the person without injury.

9

 Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2015/16

Figure 2.5: Breakdown of hate crime by selected offence types and monitored strand, 2015/16
100
90
80

Percentage

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Race

Religion

Sexual
orientation

Public order offences
Violence against the person without injury
Other notifiable offences

Disability

Transgender

Total hate crime

Violence against the person with injury
Criminal damage and arson

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office

2.3 HATE CRIME OUTCOMES
The Home Office collects information on the outcomes of police recorded offences, including those
that are flagged as hate crimes. For more information on outcomes see Crime Outcomes in England
and Wales 2015/16.
Crime outcomes presented in previous hate crime bulletins focused on the number of outcomes
assigned in a particular year (irrespective of when the crime was recorded). This year, the analysis is
based on how offences recorded in 2015/16 have been dealt with. A number of outcomes included in
the analysis will have been assigned after the end of the 2015/16 financial year. Some offences will
not yet have been assigned an outcome and so these figures are subject to change over time.

Racially or religiously aggravated offence outcomes
At the time these data were analysed by the Home Office12, 91 per cent of racially or religiously
aggravated offences had been assigned an outcome compared with 94 per cent of their nonaggravated counterparts (data not shown).
Figure 2.6 shows that racially or religiously aggravated offences were more likely to be dealt with by a
charge/summons than their non-aggravated counterparts, reflecting the serious nature of racially or
religiously aggravated offences. In particular:

12

June 2016.

10

 Police recorded hate crime

 twenty-two per cent of racially or religiously aggravated public fear, alarm and distress offences
had been dealt with by charge/summons compared with 15 per cent of the non-aggravated
equivalent offences,
 a quarter (25%) of racially or religiously aggravated assault offences had been dealt with by
charge/summons compared with 16 per cent of non-aggravated assaults,
 twelve per cent of racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage offences resulted in
charge/summons, while eight per cent of non-aggravated criminal damage offences had been
dealt with in this way.
Figure 2.6: Percentage of racially or religiously aggravated offences and their non-aggravated
equivalents recorded in 2015/16 resulting in charge/summons, by offence type
30
25

25
22

Percentages

20

15

16

15

12
10

8
5

0
Public f ear, alarm distress
of f ences

Assault with/without injury

Racially or religiously aggravated of f ences

Criminal damage

Non-aggravated equivalent of f ences

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office

Racially or religiously aggravated offences were less likely to be dealt with by a formal caution (6%)
than non-aggravated versions of these offences (14%; Appendix table 2.03).

11

 Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2015/16

Flagged hate crime offences – Home Office Data Hub
The Home Office have implemented an improved data collection system called the Home Office Data
Hub which is designed to streamline the process by which forces submit data. The Data Hub replaces
the old system by capturing record level crime data via direct extracts from forces' own crime
recording systems. This allows the police to provide more detailed information to the Home Office
enabling a greater range of analyses to be carried out. The migration of forces to the Data Hub 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.
Using the Data Hub, it is possible to see how offences flagged as being motivated by one or more of
the five monitored strands have been dealt with by the police. The analyses presented are based on
data from 2413 of the 44 police forces in England and Wales that supplied adequate data to the Data
Hub; these forces accounted for 62 per cent of all police recorded hate crime in 2015/16.
In total, 98 per cent of hate crime flagged offences recorded in 2015/16 had been assigned an
outcome by the time the data were extracted from the Data Hub.14 The remaining two per cent were
still under investigation. Ninety-seven per cent of non-hate crime offences had been assigned an
outcome by the date of extraction.
Appendix table 2.04 shows that 21 per cent of all hate crime flagged offences had been dealt with by a
charge or summons. As shown in Figure 2.4, the offences recorded by the police that constitute hate
crimes are very different to overall crime; therefore comparisons in charge/summons rates are shown
below for certain offence groups rather than overall crime.
Figure 2.3 shows that violence against the person, public order offences and criminal damage and
arson offences comprise 96 per cent of hate crime flagged offences. This proportion is the same for
the 24 forces included in this analysis, suggesting that these 24 forces are representative of the
national picture. The proportions of outcomes assigned varied by offence type (Appendix table 2.05;
Figure 2.7):







Violence against the person offences flagged as hate crimes were more likely to be dealt with
by charge/summons than non-hate violence (21% compared with 17%). A quarter (25%) of
hate crime flagged violence against the person offences were assigned the outcome
‘investigation complete – no suspect identified’, compared with 15% of non-hate crime flagged
violence against the person offences.
The proportion of offences dealt with by a charge/summons was the same for hate crime
flagged public order offences and non-hate crime public order offences (22%). Hate crime
flagged public order offences were less likely to be dealt with by a caution than non-hate crime
public order offences (3% compared with 6%).
Thirteen per cent of hate crime flagged criminal damage and arson offences has been dealt
with by a charge or summons, compared with eight per cent for non-hate crime criminal
damage and arson offences.

Figure 2.8 shows the proportion of hate crimes that were dealt with by charge or summons for each of
the five hate crime strands for the three offence groups most commonly flagged as hate crime:
violence against the person, public order offences and criminal damage.

13

Avon and Somerset, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cleveland, Devon and Cornwall, Dyfed-Powys,
Gloucestershire, Gwent, Hampshire, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Merseyside, Metropolitan Police, Northumbria,
North Wales, North Yorkshire, South Wales, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Surrey, Thames Valley, Warwickshire
and West Mercia.
14
September 2016.

12

 Police recorded hate crime

Figure 2.7: Percentage of selected offences dealt with by a charge/summons, offences
recorded in 2015/16, 24 forces
25
22

22

21

20

Percentage

17

15
13

10

8

5

0
Violence against the person

Public order of f ences

Hate crime f lagged

Criminal Damage and Arson

Non-hate crime f lagged

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office Data Hub

Figure 2.8: Percentage of selected offences resulting in charge/summons, by strand, offences
recorded in 2015/16, 24 forces
30

25

24

24
22

Percentage

20

19
17

17

17

16

15

15
12

12
10

9

10

9

8

7
5

3
0

0
Violence against the person
Race

Religion

Disabilty

Public order of f ences
Sexual Orientation

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office Data Hub

13

Criminal Damage and Arson

Transgender

Non-hate crime

 Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2015/16

Figure 2.9 shows the median number of days taken to assign an outcome to selected hate crime
flagged and non-hate crime offences. The median number of days taken to assign an outcome to
criminal damage and arson hate crime offences was 27 days, compared with 14 days for non-hate
crime flagged criminal damage and arson. Similarly, it took longer to assign an outcome to violence
against the person hate crime offences (median=33 days) than to non-hate crime flagged violent
offences (median=25 days). There was little difference in the median time taken to assign outcomes to
public order offences.
Figure 2.9: Median number of days taken to assign an outcome, hate crime flagged and nonhate crime flagged offences, offences recorded in 2015/16, 24 forces
35

Median number of days

30

33
27

26

25

24

25
20
15

14

10
5
0
Criminal Damage and Arson

Public order offences

Hate crime flagged

Violence against the person

Non-hate crime flagged

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office Data Hub

2.4 TRANSFERRED OR CANCELLED RECORDS
A transferred or cancelled record occurs when the police record an offence, but subsequently
determine that the crime did not take place, was recorded in error or should be transferred to another
force. Cases where an incident was not recorded as a crime in the first place are not included.
Offences may be transferred or cancelled in one of the following situations:
1. Transferred: Crime committed outside the jurisdiction of the police force in which it was
recorded – passed to the appropriate force.
2. Cancelled: Additional verifiable information that determines that no notifiable crime occurred
becomes available.
3. Cancelled: Duplicate record or part of a crime already recorded.
4. Cancelled: Crime recorded in error.
5. Cancelled: Self defence claimed (for specific recorded assaults).
Transferred or cancelled records are always recorded in the same financial year as the offence that
was originally recorded. So if, for example, an offence was recorded in January and then subsequently
transferred or cancelled in the next financial year (e.g. May), the transferred or cancelled record will be

14

 Police recorded hate crime

recorded for the previous financial year. This ensures that the total count of offences in any given year
is correct. This analysis includes 22 forces15 that supplied data of sufficient quality to the Data Hub.
Overall, 2.8 per cent of hate crimes originally recorded in 2015/16 were subsequently transferred or
cancelled. Most of these (2.2%) were cancelled and 0.7 per cent of crimes were transferred to another
police force (compared with 3.0% and 0.5% for non-hate crime offences respectively; Appendix table
2.06).
These proportions varied considerably by offence group. Of the three offence groups most commonly
flagged as hate crimes, public order offences were most likely to be cancelled. In 2015/16, 2.3% of all
hate crime flagged public order offences were cancelled compared with 5.5% of non-hate crime
flagged public order offences (Appendix table 2.07).

15

Avon and Somerset, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cleveland, Devon and Cornwall, Dyfed-Powys,
Gloucestershire, Gwent, Hampshire, Lincolnshire, Merseyside, Metropolitan Police, Northumbria, North Wales,
South Wales, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Surrey, Thames Valley, Warwickshire and West Mercia.

15

 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 2015/16, there were 58,197 racist incidents recorded by the 43 police forces in England and Wales
(racist incident data excludes the British Transport Police), an increase of eight per cent compared
with the previous year. The number of racist incidents recorded by police remained relatively stable
between 2011/12 and 2013/14, before increasing by 10 per cent in 2014/15 (Figure 3.1; Appendix
Table 3.01). It is likely that improved identification and recording of racist incidents is a factor behind
the increase seen in the last two years. Furthermore, while incidents are recorded under the National
Standard for Incident Recording in accordance with the same ‘victim focused’ approach that applies
for recorded crime, it is known that there are substantial variations between police forces and over
time in how they record racist incidents. Given the greater quality, development and depth of the
police recorded hate crime; the Home Office has ceased collecting racist incident data from the
police.16
Figure 3.1: Number of racist incidents recorded by the police (excluding British Transport
Police), 2009/10 to 2015/16
70,000

Number of incidents

60,000
50,000

40,000
30,000

20,000
10,000
0
2009/10

2010/11

2011/12

2012/13

Source: Police recorded incidents, Home Office

16

See Introduction for more information.

16

2013/14

2014/15

2015/16

 Annex A - Hate crime and the EU Referendum
On Thursday 23 June 2016, the EU referendum took place and the people of the United Kingdom
voted to leave the European Union. Following this result, information released by the National Police
Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), which covers Northern Ireland as well as England and Wales, showed that
there had been an increase in the level of reported and recorded hate crime. This Annex provides
information on the level of police recorded hate crime around the time of the EU Referendum as
notified to the Home Office. Data for July 2016 onwards are provisional but have been presented in
this Annex in response to the interest in hate crime following the referendum result.
As stated in the introduction, there are five centrally monitored strands of hate crime:







race or ethnicity;
religion or beliefs;
sexual orientation;
disability; and
transgender identity.

The College of Policing has provided operational guidance (published in 2014) to police forces around
hate crime, including information on what can be covered by race hate crime.17 The guidance states:
“Race hate crime can include any group defined by race, colour, nationality or ethnic or national origin,
including countries within the UK, and Gypsy or Irish Travellers. It automatically includes a person who
is targeted because they are an asylum seeker or refugee as this is intrinsically linked to their ethnicity
and origins. Policy and legislation takes a ‘human rights’ approach and covers majority as well as
minority groups.”
This means that crimes with a xenophobic element (such as graffiti targeting certain nationalities) can
be recorded as race hate crimes by the police.
Following the EU Referendum, the NPCC requested weekly returns from police forces across
England, Wales, and Northern Ireland to measure the level of hate crime in a timely way. The NPCC
released a series of reports based on these figures, the last of which was published on 7 September.
This report stated that following a sharp increase in July, the level of hate crime reports per week in
England and Wales and Northern Ireland had been declining in August – to a level seen in earlier
2016 (although levels were higher than seen in 2015). Due to this, the NPCC have now ended their
weekly collection of hate crime data.
For further information, please see: http://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/tackling-hate-crime-remains-apriority.
As mentioned in the Introduction, the police have the option to record some offences as racially or
religiously aggravated (see Table 1). 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. Therefore, if there has been an increase in hate crime following the EU
Referendum, we would also expect to see an increase in the number of racially or religiously
aggravated offences over the same time period.
The data the Home Office receives from the police in the main police recorded crime return for these
racially or religiously aggravated offences are available on a monthly basis18, allowing the level of
these offences to be shown around the time of the EU Referendum.

17

See http://www.report-it.org.uk/files/hate_crime_operational_guidance.pdf

17

 Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2015/16

Figure A1 shows the monthly number of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the
police in the last four years. There is an increase in these offences recorded in June 2016,19 followed
by an even sharper increase in July 2016.20 The number of aggravated offences recorded then
declined in August, but remained at a higher level than prior to the EU Referendum.21 These increases
fit the widely reported pattern of an increase in hate crime following the EU referendum. Whilst
January to May 2016 follows a similar level of hate crime to 2015, the number of racially or religiously
aggravated offences recorded by the police in July 2016 was 41% higher than in July 2015. The sharp
increase in offences is not replicated in the non-racially or religiously aggravated equivalent offences
(Figure A2).

Figure A1: Number of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police, 2013
to 2016
6,000

5,000

Number of offences

4,000

3,000

2,000
2013

2014

2015

2016

1,000

0

Source: Police Recorded Crime, Home Office

18

Although data from the main police recorded crime collection are sent to the Home Office broken down by
month, the data are only quality assured with police forces on a quarterly basis.
19
There were seven full days in the month of June following the EU Referendum.
20
Police recorded crime figures for July and August 2016 have not been reconciled with police forces.
21
Figures for July 2016 exclude Derbyshire, figures for August 2016 exclude Derbyshire and Hampshire.

18

 Annex A - Hate crime and the EU Referendum

Figure A2: Indexed trends in the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences and their
non-aggravated equivalents1 recorded by the police, April 2014 to August 2016

Indexed trend, April 2014=100

250

200

150

100
Non-aggravated offences

Aggravated offences

50

0

Source: Police Recorded Crime, Home Office
1. See Table 1 for list of offences covered.

The Home Office Data Hub contains information on the exact day that an offence is recorded.22 Figure
A3 shows racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police by day of recording in May
to August 2016 for 31 forces23 that supplied data to the Home Office Data Hub – therefore covering
the period of the EU Referendum. This analysis shows a clear increase following the referendum
result. The number of racially or religiously aggravated offences then falls during August, with the
number of offences at the end of August at a similar level seen prior to the referendum.

22

Figures may include offences that took place before the date of recording. It is possible they were reported as a
result of the increased media attention on hate crime around the time of the EU referendum.
23
Avon and Somerset, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cleveland, Devon and Cornwall, Derbyshire,
Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester, Gwent, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Humberside, Lancashire, Lincolnshire,
Merseyside, Metropolitan Police, Northumbria, North Wales, North Yorkshire, South Wales, South Yorkshire,
Staffordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley, Warwickshire , West Mercia, West Midlands, West Yorkshire and
Wiltshire.

19

 Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2015/16

Figure A3: Number of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police, 31
forces, May to August 2016
220
200
180

Number of offences

160
140
120
100
80

23rd June: Day of Referendum

60
40
20
0

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office Data Hub

20

 Annex B – Hate Crime Data Sources and
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 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.

POLICE RECORDED CRIME 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 supply the data at least monthly via the Home
Office Data Hub or on an annual basis in a manual 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 monitored strands covered. In the manual 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 monitored strands (or motivating factors) associated
with these offences. In the 2015/16 collection, forces returning data manually were required to provide
an offence group breakdown for recorded hate crimes; prior to 2015/16 only an aggregated total of
hate crimes for each of the five strands was asked for. It is possible for more than one of the
monitored strands (motivating factors) to be assigned to a crime. For instance an offence motivated by
hostility to race and religion would be counted twice, once under each of the strands.
Further information on how the police record hate crime can be found in the Hate Crime Operational
Guidance24 publication.
At the end of each financial year, the Home Office carry out a series of quality assurance checks on
the hate crime data collected from the police forces (either by aggregate return or via 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.
 Comparing the number of racist incidents with the number of race hate crimes.
24

For recording purposes, the perception of the victim, or any other person, is the defining factor in determining
whether an incident is a hate incident, or in recognising the hostility element of a hate crime. The victim does not
have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this
perception. Evidence of the hostility is not required for an incident or crime to be recorded as a hate crime or hate
incident. (http://www.report-it.org.uk/files/hate_crime_operational_guidance.pdf)

21

 Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2015/16

Police forces are then asked to investigate these trends and either provide an explanation, or resubmit
figures where the reconciliation identifies data quality issues.
The data are then tabulated by monitored strand and year 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.
Racist incidents were provided to the Home Office on an annual basis until March 2016 when the
collection was discontinued.

22

 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 Crime 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
‘Hate Crimes, England and Wales, 2013/14’ is available from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crimes-england-and-wales-2013-to-2014
‘Hate Crimes, England and Wales, 2014/15’ is available from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2014-to-2015
‘Crime outcomes in England and Wales: year ending March 2016’ is available from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/crime-outcomes-in-england-and-wales-2015-to-2016
Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
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
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:
https://www.psni.police.uk/inside-psni/Statistics/hate-motivation-statistics/
http://www.copfs.gov.uk/images/HateCrimeinScotland2014-15.pdf (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 carries 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 of the monitored strands can be found here: http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/document/hatecrime-2/
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

23

 Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2015/16

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

24

 Statistical Bulletins are prepared by staff in Home Office Statistics under the Official Statistics Code
of Practice and can be downloaded from GOV.UK:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/about/statistics

ISBN: 978-1-78655-219-8

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