Official Statistics

Hate crime, England and Wales, 2019 to 2020

Updated 28 October 2020

Frequency of release: Annual

Forthcoming release: Home Office statistics release calendar

Home Office responsible statistician: John Flatley

Press enquires: pressoffice@homeoffice.gov.uk, Telephone: 020 7035 3535

Public enquires: crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gov.uk

This release contains statistics about hate crime offences recorded by the police in England and Wales and estimated by the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW).

Key results

• in year ending March 2020, there were 105,090 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales, excluding Greater Manchester police, an increase of 8 per cent compared with year ending March 2019 (97,446 offences)

• increases in police recorded hate crime in recent years have been driven by improvements in crime recording and a better identification of what constitutes a hate crime
• in contrast, the CSEW which is not affected by changes in crime recording, shows a long-term decline in hate crime, with a 38% fall in these incidents between the combined year ending March 2008 and year ending March 2009 and the combined year ending March 2018, year ending March 2019 and year ending March 2020 surveys.

1. Introduction

1.1 Overview

This statistical bulletin provides information on the number of hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales in year ending March 2020. Data for Greater Manchester Police have not been included in this bulletin as they have been unable to supply data following the implementation of a new IT system in July 2019.

Estimates on the number of hate crime incidents are also presented from the Crime Survey for England and Wales for the combined survey years of year ending March 2018, year ending March 2019 and year ending March 2020.

In response to requests from users, we have also published an annex which contains provisional data on trends in racially or religiously aggravated offences during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic up to the end of July 2020.

1.2 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
• transgender identity

In the process of recording a crime, the police can flag an offence as being motivated by one or more of these five monitored strands^{[footnote 1]} for example, an offence can be motivated by hostility towards the victim’s race and religion). For more information, see Section 4 - Hate Crime data sources and quality. Hate crime figures in this bulletin are therefore dependent on a flag being correctly applied to an offence that is identified as a hate crime.

The College of Policing (CoP) provided operational guidance in 2014 on hate crime to police forces, including information on what can be covered by race hate crime. The guidance states:

“Race means 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^{[footnote 2]}.”

This means that offences with a xenophobic element (such as graffiti targeting certain nationalities) can be recorded as race hate crimes by the police. An offence may be motivated by hatred towards a characteristic (strand) that is not centrally monitored and does not form part of the data collection presented in this statistical bulletin (age or gender for example).

Terrorist offences may also be considered a hate crime and the College of Policing operational guidance states there is “a clear overlap between hate crime and terrorist activity^{[footnote 3]}”. Some terrorist attacks may be targeted against general British or Western values rather than one of the five specific strands. Attacks of this nature are therefore not covered by this statistical bulletin, although they will clearly be motivated by hate. However, other terrorist attacks are motivated by a hatred towards one of the centrally monitored hate crime strands covered by this statistical bulletin. For example, the Finsbury Park Mosque attack in June 2017 has been classified as a hate crime because the victims were thought to be targeted because of their religious affiliation.

The CoP launched a consultation on the hate crime guidance in October 2019 (now closed). A new version of the guidance following the consultation is due to be published in October 2020 after the publication date of this statistical bulletin.

The Law Commission is making proposals to reform hate crime laws to remove the disparity in the way hate crime laws treat each protected characteristic – race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity. The Commission is also proposing that sex or gender be added to the list of protected characteristics that are covered by hate crime laws. The hate crime consultation is open from 23 September 2020 until 24 December 2020. Final recommendations to the Government are due to be published in 2021.

1.3 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 defined by statute. These 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 1.1). These racially or religiously aggravated offences are, by definition, hate crimes. Just over half (56%) of hate crime offences are recorded as one of these racially or religiously aggravated offences.

Table 1.1 The five racially or religiously aggravated offences and their non-aggravated equivalents

	Racially or religiously aggravated offences		Non-aggravated equivalent offences
Offence code	Offence description	Offence code	Offence description
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 criminal damage	58A 58B 58C 58D	Criminal damage to a dwelling Criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling Criminal damage to a vehicle Other criminal damage

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office

1.4 Crime survey for England and Wales (CSEW)

The CSEW is a face-to-face victimisation survey and provides information on hate crimes experienced by people resident in England and Wales. As the CSEW is a general household population survey, the number of hate crime incidents and victims estimated in a single survey year is too unreliable to report on. Therefore, three annual datasets are combined in order to provide a larger sample which can be used to produce more robust estimates for hate crime. In this bulletin, the latest estimates from the CSEW are based on the combined year ending March 2018, year ending March 2019 and year ending March 2020 surveys.

Previously, estimates from the CSEW have been published every third year, reflecting the combining of three survey years. Estimates from the CSEW were next due to be published in 2021. However, due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, CSEW face-to-face interviewing was suspended on 17 March 2020 and will not resume until at least 2021. Therefore, data for the year ending March 2021 survey year that would have been used in the three-year combined figures in the next bulletin will not be available. Publication has therefore been brought forward. This means that one survey year (year ending March 2018) has been included in both the latest estimates provided in this bulletin and the data published in 2018.

In contrast to police recorded crime, the CSEW is unaffected by changes in reporting rates or police activity and it includes crimes that do not come to the attention of the police. However, the CSEW does not cover crimes against businesses or those not resident in households (for example, short-term visitors, or people living in institutions – such as care homes). It also excludes homicides and crimes that are termed “victimless”, such as many public order offences, which account for over half of police recorded hate crime.

The CSEW is not well-suited to measuring trends in some of the more harmful crimes that occur in relatively low volumes. This is because estimates of less frequently-occurring crime types can be subject to substantial variability from one-time period to another, making it difficult to interpret short-term trends. As three years’ worth of data have been combined, the CSEW estimates for hate crime are not suitable for examining short term changes in hate crime.

1.5 Understanding differences between the CSEW and police recorded hate crime

Trends in police recorded and CSEW hate crime have been notably different over recent years. Police recorded hate crime has risen, while the CSEW has shown a fall over the longer-term. The main reason for this difference will be due to the improvements to recording processes and practices made by the police since 2014. HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) have conducted a range of inspections related to police forces’ crime and incident recording practices in recent years. In 2014, Crime recording: making the victim count concluded that 33% of cases involving violence were not recorded by the police in England and Wales. Improvements made by the police were identified in their report State of policing: 2019, where a lower proportion (12%) of violent offences reported to the police went unrecorded.

These improvements have made substantial contributions to rises in recorded crime over the last six years. This effect has been more pronounced for some crime types, such as violence against the person and public order offences. These offences account for 9 in 10 police recorded hate crimes, meaning police figures do not currently provide reliable trends in hate crime.

Additionally, there are a number of differences in the coverage of the CSEW and police recorded crime.

The CSEW is a victimisation survey which covers adults aged 16 and over resident in households in England and Wales. Police recorded crime figures includes crimes against people of all ages, against society (crimes where there is not a direct victim such as public order offences) as well as businesses and institutions. This is a key difference for hate crime offences as public order offences are not well covered by the CSEW, as many of these offences will not involve a specifically identifiable victim. Conversely, public order offences account for over a half of police recorded hate crime.

The sources cover different time periods. The CSEW data presented in this statistical bulletin relate to a near four-year period. This is due to the combining of three annual datasets – year ending March 2018, year ending March 2019 and year ending March 2020 – with the CSEW asking respondents throughout the survey year for their experiences of crime in the year to interview. As previously noted, this is required to produce more robust estimates on numbers of hate crimes per year from the survey. The CSEW will therefore only give a very broad estimate of the level of hate crime in England and Wales across these four years and will not provide any information on whether the level of hate crime has changed in this period.

Police recorded hate crime data are available on an annual basis. In addition, for racially or religiously aggravated offences, data are available for all police forces in England and Wales on a monthly basis so trends in these crimes around events such as the EU Referendum and the terrorist attacks in 2017 can be examined. However, as mentioned above it is known that police recorded crime data have been heavily affected by improvements in crime recording by the police over recent years, so data from the police are limited in assessing longer-term trends in hate crime.

Other differences in coverage include:

Respondents to the CSEW might misunderstand the survey questions. When they are asked whether they think a crime was committed because of a motivating factor, they may instead be responding based upon their perceived vulnerability. This is likely to be a reason why the estimate of disability hate crime is much higher in the CSEW than the number of these offences recorded by the police.

The respondent is asked in the survey whether the hate crime incident came to the attention of the police and, not whether the police actually recorded a crime (the police may witness an incident and decide that a crime was not committed, for example).

Similarly, while a respondent might say the crime did come to the attention of the police, the survey does not ask whether the respondent told the police that they thought it was motivated by one of the five hate crime strands. It is possible that some offences estimated by the survey may have been recorded by the police as a crime, but not specifically as a hate crime.

In the recording of a crime, it might not become apparent that there was a motivating hate factor, meaning that police may not ask the direct question whether the victim thought that the crime was a hate crime.

2. Police recorded hate crime

Key results

There were 105,090 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2019/20 (excludes Greater Manchester Police^{[footnote 4]}), an increase of eight per cent compared with year ending March 2019 (97,446 offences). While increases in hate crime over the last five years have been mainly driven by improvements in crime recording by the police, there has been spikes in hate crime following certain events such as the EU Referendum and the terrorist attacks in 2017.

As in previous years, the majority of hate crimes were race hate crimes, accounting for around three-quarters of offences (72%; 76,070 offences). These increased by six per cent between year ending March 2019 and year ending March 2020.

Religious hate crimes fell by five per cent (to 6,822 offences), down from a peak of 7,203 in the previous year. This was the first fall in religious hate crimes since year ending March 2013.

Sexual orientation hate crimes increased 19 per cent (to 15,835), disability hate crimes by nine per cent (to 8,469) and transgender identity hate crimes by 16 per cent (to 2,540). These percentage increases are smaller than seen in recent years.

Over half (53%) of the hate crimes recorded by the police were for public order offences and a further third (38%) were for violence against the person offences. Five per cent were recorded as criminal damage and arson offences.

2.1 Prevalence and trends

Hate crimes are a subset of notifiable offences that are recorded by the police and made up less than two per cent of these crimes in year ending March 2020, similar to previous years.

There were 105,090 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales in year ending March 2020 (excluding Greater Manchester police) an increase of eight per cent compared with year ending March 2019 (97,446 offences; see Table 2.1). This is the lowest percentage increase in these offences since year ending March 2014, when there was a six per cent rise, and is likely to reflect a lessening effect of crime recording improvements seen since 2014.

Religious hate crimes fell by five per cent, from 7,203 to 6,822, the first fall in these offences since year ending March 2013, when there was a one per cent fall. There were increases in sexual orientation (up 19%), disability (9%) and transgender identity (16%) hate crimes over the last year. These percentage changes were lower than seen in recent years.

The increases seen over the last five years are thought to have been driven by improvements in crime recording by the police following a review by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS)^{[footnote 5]} in 2014 and the removal of the designation of police recorded crime as National Statistics^{[footnote 6]}. It also thought that growing awareness of hate crime is likely to have led to improved identification of such offences. Although these improvements are thought to be the main drivers for the increases seen, there appear to have been short-term genuine rises in hate crime following certain trigger events such as the EU Referendum in June 2016 and the terrorist attacks in 2017. Part of the increase over the last year may or may not reflect a real rise in hate crimes recorded by the police.

Table 2.1: Hate crimes recorded by the police by monitored strand, year ending March 2016 to year ending March 2020

Numbers and percentages						England and Wales
Hate crime strand	2015/16	2016/17	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	% change 2018/19 to 2019/20
Race	45,440	58,294	64,829	72,041	76,070	6
Religion	3,962	5,184	7,103	7,203	6,822	-5
Sexual orientation	6,700	8,569	10,670	13,314	15,835	19
Disability	3,393	5,254	6,787	7,786	8,469	9
Transgender	820	1,195	1,615	2,183	2,540	16
Total number of motivating factors	60,315	78,496	91,004	102,527	109,736	7
Total number of offences	57,676	74,967	86,254	97,446	105,090	8

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

It is possible for a crime to have more than one motivating factor (for example an offence may be motivated by hostility towards both 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 2.1. For this reason, the sum of the five motivating factors in the above exceeds the 105,090 overall hate crime offences recorded by the police. Around five per cent of hate crime offences in year ending March 2020 were estimated to have involved more than one motivating factor^{[footnote 7]}. Hate crime data by Police Force Area from year ending March 2012 to year ending March 2020 can be found in the Home Office Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables.

Improvements in police recording have been noted as a driver in the increase seen in hate crime offences recorded by the police in recent years. Section 2.2 shows that 91 per cent of hate crimes in year ending March 2020 were for either public order or violence against the person offences, continuing the pattern seen in previous years. These are two offence groups thought to have been previously subject to relatively high levels of under-recording and thus improvements in crime recording is likely to have had a larger impact on these groups than other offences. Figure 2.1 shows the indexed trend in overall violent and public order offences since year ending March 2013 compared with all hate crime offences over the same period. As can be seen, there is a strong correlation between the increase in overall public order and violence against the person offences and hate crime.

In contrast, the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW)^{[footnote 8]}, which is unaffected by changes in recording practice, shows a fall in hate crime over the last decade. According to the CSEW, the estimated number of hate crime incidents experienced by adults aged 16 and over fell from 307,000 in the combined year ending March 2008 and year ending March 2009 surveys to 190,000 in the combined year ending March 2018, year ending March 2019 and year ending March 2020 surveys, a fall of 38 per cent. However, due to the combined survey years the CSEW is not able to identify changes in hate crime over shorter-term periods.

Figure 2.1: Indexed trends in the number of police recorded violence against the person and public order and hate crime offences, year ending March 2013 to year ending March 2020 (year ending March 2013 = 100)

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office. Figures exclude GMP.

Religious hate crimes

In April 2016, the Home Office began collecting information from the police on the perceived religion of victims of religious hate crime. By perceived, we mean the religion targeted by the offender. While in the majority of offences the perceived and actual religion of the victim will be the same, in some cases this will differ. For example, if anti-Muslim graffiti is sprayed on a religious temple of another faith, this would be recorded as an offence of racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage and flagged by the respective police force as a religious hate crime against Muslims.

There are nine different perceived religion flags in this collection, which match those reported upon in the 2011 Census:

• Buddhist
• Christian
• Hindu
• Jewish
• Muslim
• Sikh
• other
• no religion
• unknown

Of the 6,822 religious hate crimes recorded by the police in year ending March 2020, information on the targeted religion was provided in 6,203 of the offences (91%)^{[footnote 9]}.

In some cases, more than one perceived religion had been flagged on one offence (for example, a piece of graffiti may have targeted more than one religion). All police forces sent data on the perceived religion of the victims of religious hate crimes (with the exception of Nottinghamshire, who were unable to provide these data for year ending March 2020), although for some forces the number of offences recorded with ‘unknown religion’ was relatively high.

In year ending March 2020, where the perceived religion of the victim was recorded, half (50%) of religious hate crime offences were targeted against Muslims (3,089 offences). The next most commonly targeted group were Jewish people, who were targeted in 19 per cent of religious hate crimes (1,205 offences). These proportions were similar to the previous year.

In 13 per cent of offences, the targeted religion was not known. Information on other religions can be found in Table 2.2.

Table 2.2: Number and proportion of religious hate crimes recorded by the police¹, by the perceived targeted religion, year ending March 2020

Numbers and percentages		England and Wales
Perceived religion of the victim	Number of offences 2019/20	% 2019/20
Buddhist	21	0
Christian	531	9
Hindu	114	2
Jewish	1,205	19
Muslim	3,089	50
Sikh	202	3
Other	432	7
No religion	70	1
Unknown	823	13
Total number of targeted religions	6,487
Total number of offences	6,203

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office. Figures exclude GMP and Nottinghamshire. See Bulletin Table 3 for detailed footnotes.
1. In some offences more than one religion has been recorded as being targeted, therefore the sum of the proportions do not add to 100%.

Racial or religiously aggravated offences

The data the Home Office receives in the main police recorded crime return for racially or religiously aggravated offences are available on a monthly basis^{[footnote 10]}. This allows in-year trend in these offences to be seen around the time of particular incidents. An indexed chart of these offences and their non-aggravated equivalent offence are shown in (Figure 2.2). There are two clear spikes in these aggravated offences which are not seen in the non-aggravated offences: July 2016, following the EU Referendum, and July 2017, following the terrorist attacks in this year. There are also spikes in July 2018 and 2019, but these follow the same trend as the non-aggravated offences.

Provisional data for racially or religiously aggravated offences for the months April to July 2020 are included in an Annex to this bulletin. This Annex shows the level of these offences under the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic lockdown restrictions.

Figure 2.2: Indexed number of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police by month, April 2015 to March 2020

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office. Figures exclude GMP.

2.2 Hate crimes by type of offence

Over half (53%) of the hate crimes recorded by the police were for public order offences and over a third (38%) were for violence against the person offences (Figure 2.3; Appendix Table 2). Together, these offence categories accounted for just over nine in ten (91%) of all hate crimes recorded by the police.

Figure 2.3: Distribution of offences flagged as hate crimes, year ending March 2020

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office. Figures exclude GMP.

The distribution of hate crime offences differs markedly from overall police recorded crime. Theft offences accounted for just under a third (31%) of all recorded crime in year ending March 2020; these offences are unlikely to involve a motivating factor against a monitored strand. In contrast, public order offences accounted for just seven per cent of all notifiable offences compared with 53 per cent of hate crime offences (Figure 2.4).

Figure 2.4: Breakdown of hate crimes and overall recorded crime by selected offence types, year ending March 2020

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office. Figures exclude GMP.

Figure 2.5 shows what type of offences are being recorded for each monitored strand. As in previous years, public order offences were the most common offence to be recorded for all strands.

Figure 2.5: Breakdown of hate crime by selected offence types and monitored strand, year ending March 2020

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office. Figures exclude GMP.

2.3 Hate crime outcomes

The Home Office collects information on the investigative outcomes of police recorded offences, including those that are flagged as hate crimes. For further information on outcomes see Crime Outcomes in England and Wales: Year ending March 2020.

This section covers how the police have dealt with hate crimes recorded in the year ending March 2020. This analysis is based on the outcomes assigned to crimes recorded in year ending March 2020 at the time the data were extracted (30 June 2020) for analysis. Some offences will not have been assigned an outcome at this time and therefore these figures are subject to change.

Racially or religiously aggravated offence outcomes

Data presented in this section are for racially or religiously aggravated offences as these data were available for all police forces. Data on outcomes for all hate crime offences, which were available for 31 of the 44 police forces^{[footnote 11]}, are presented in the next section.

At the time these data were extracted, 90 per cent of racially or religiously aggravated offences had been assigned an outcome compared with 93 per cent of their non-aggravated 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:

• 11% of racially or religiously aggravated public fear, alarm and distress offences had been dealt with by charge or summons compared with five per cent of the non-aggravated equivalent offences
• ten per cent of racially or religiously aggravated assault offences had been dealt with by charge/summons compared with six per cent of non-aggravated assaults
• nine per cent of racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage offences resulted in charge/summons, compared with five per cent of non-aggravated criminal damage offences

Figure 2.6: Percentage of racially or religiously aggravated offences and their non-aggravated equivalents recorded in year ending March 2020 resulting in charge/summons, by offence type

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office. Figures exclude GMP.

As explained in the ‘Crime outcomes, England and Wales, 2019 to 2020’ statistical bulletin, the volumes of charges have been falling in recent years at the same time as volume of crimes recorded by the police has risen. This pattern has also been seen in racially or religiously aggravated offences. There is evidence to suggest that a higher proportion of recorded crimes in recent years were for offence types which can be more challenging to investigate. This means that the investigative caseload has both grown and become more complex.

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.

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 31^{[footnote 12]} of the 44 police forces in England and Wales that supplied adequate data to the Data Hub; these forces data accounted for 77 per cent of all police recorded hate crime in year ending March 2020.

In total, 93 per cent of hate crime flagged offences recorded in year ending March 2020 had been assigned an outcome at the time the data were extracted from the Data Hub^{[footnote 13]}. The remaining seven per cent were still under investigation. Similarly, 95 per cent of non-hate crime offences had been assigned an outcome at the time of data extraction (data not shown).

Appendix Table 4 shows that nine 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 were very different to overall crime. Therefore, to provide more meaningful comparisons charge or summons rates are shown below for certain offence groups.

Figure 2.4 shows that violence against the person, public order offences and criminal damage and arson offences comprised 96 per cent of hate crime flagged offences. This proportion is the same for the 31 forces included in this analysis, suggesting that these forces are broadly representative of all. The proportions of outcomes assigned varied by offence type. (Appendix Table 5; Figure 2.7):

• seven per cent of violence against the person offences flagged as hate crimes were dealt with by charge/summons, the same as non-flagged offences
• ten per cent of hate crime flagged public order offences had been dealt with a charge or summons compared with nine per cent for non-hate crime flagged public order offences
• seven per cent of hate crime flagged criminal damage and arson offences had been dealt with by a charge or summons compared with five percent of non-hate crime flagged criminal damage and arson offences

Figure 2.7: Percentage of selected offences dealt with by a charge/summons, offences recorded in year ending March 2020, 31 forces

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office Data Hub. Figures exclude GMP.

The most frequent outcome recorded for violent offences was “evidential difficulties as the victim does not support action”; this was the outcome for 35 per cent of hate crime flagged violence against the person offences compared with 46 per cent of non-hate crime flagged offences (Appendix Table 5).

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 three offence groups.

Figure 2.8: Percentage of selected offences resulting in charge/summons, by hate crime strand, offences recorded in year ending March 2020, 31 forces

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office Data Hub. Figures exclude GMP.

Figure 2.9 shows the median number of days taken to assign an outcome, from the date the crime was recorded, for selected hate crime and non-hate crime offences. Hate crime offences, on average, took longer to be assigned a final outcome than non-hate crime offences. For example, the median number of days taken to assign an outcome to criminal damage and arson hate crime offences were 25 days, compared with four days for non-hate crime offences. Similarly, it took longer to assign an outcome to violence against the person hate crime offences (median=38 days) than to non-hate crime flagged violent offences (median=19 days). This suggests more investigative effort being devoted to hate crime offences which reflects the serious nature of these crimes.

Figure 2.9: Median number of days taken to assign an outcome, hate crime flagged and non-hate crime flagged offences, outcomes recorded in 2019/20, 31 forces

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office Data Hub. Figures exclude GMP.

3. Hate crime from the CSEW

Key results

The combined year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW surveys estimated there were an average of 190,000 incidents of hate crime a year during this period. This was similar to the previous estimate of 184,000 incidents (combined year ending March 2016 to year ending March 2018 CSEW).

Over the longer-term, the number of hate crime incidents has fallen, from 307,000 per year (combined 2007/08 and 2008/09 surveys) to 190,000 (combined year ending March 2018 and year ending March 2020 surveys), a drop of 38 per cent.

Overall, 47% of hate crime incidents came to the attention of the police, a higher proportion than for all CSEW crime (38%). Reporting rates for hate crime have been consistently higher than for all CSEW crime.

Victims of hate crime were more likely to report being affected by the incident rather than victims of all CSEW crime. For example, 36% of hate crime victims said they were ‘very much’ affected emotionally following the incident compared with 15% for all CSEW crime.

Over half (55%) of victims of hate crime said they were very or fairly satisfied with how the police handled the incident, a lower proportion than for all CSEW crime (66%).

3.1 Overall hate crime

According to the combined year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW^{[footnote 14]}, there were an estimated 190,000 incidents of hate crime a year. This represents around three per cent of all CSEW crime (6.1 million incidents), a similar level to the proportion in the police recorded crime series (2%).

The latest annual estimate of 190,000 incidents of hate crime a year appears to be similar to the previous estimate (184,000 incidents) from the combined year ending March 2016 to year ending March 2018 surveys. However, as both estimates include data from the year ending March 2018 survey and the samples are not independent, it is not appropriate to test for statistical significance between these figures.

Over the longer-term, there has been a fall in hate crime incidents as estimated by the CSEW. The number of incidents has fallen from 307,000 in the combined year ending March 2008 and year ending March 2009 surveys to 190,000 in the combined year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 surveys, a fall of 38 per cent. These latest figures suggest that the fall seen in hate crime over the last decade has now flattened out. Over the same time period, there was a similar percentage fall (39%) in crime overall in the CSEW (Appendix Table 7). The CSEW suggests, therefore, that hate crime has fallen at a similar rate to overall CSEW crime over the longer-term.

Three of the five strands of hate crime showed a fall since the year ending March 2008 and year ending March 2009 combined surveys, race (down 31%), sexual orientation (down 67%) and disability down (38%). The trend in religious hate crimes has been relatively flat over the last decade. It is not possible to determine the trend in transgender identity hate crimes due to the low number of CSEW respondents in the sample.

This fall in CSEW hate crime over the longer-term is in contrast to the police recorded hate crime series. Police recorded hate crime has more than doubled between year ending March 2013 and year ending March 2020. The contrasting time series reflects the improvements in crime recording made and better identification of what constitutes hate crime by the police over recent years.

As with the police series, the strand most commonly perceived as an offender’s motivation for committing a crime was the offender’s attitude to the victim’s race (around 104,000 incidents a year). The monitored strand least commonly perceived as an offender’s motivation for committing a crime was the victim’s gender-identity (around 7,000 incidents a year; Figure 3.1, Appendix Table 7). These broad patterns were similar to those seen in the police recorded crime data.

Figure 3.1: Estimated number of incidents of hate crimes with confidence intervals, year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW

Source: CSEW, ONS
Note: Figures for all hate crime do not equal to the sum of incidents in individual strands as the victim may have said the crime was motivated by more than one strand.

As stated in the Introduction, survey years have been combined to give more robust estimates for the level of hate crime in England and Wales. However, even with the joining of datasets, the number of victims of hate crime upon which these estimates are based is still relatively small. Therefore, the associated ‘range’ or confidence intervals around the estimate of total hate crimes and each monitored strand are relatively large, as shown in Figure 3.1, and care needs to be taken in making comparisons over time and between the monitored strands.

The CSEW provides estimates of the levels of personal and household crimes experienced by adults in England and Wales. Personal crimes are those against the individual and only relate to the respondent’s own personal experience (not that of other people in the household). Household crimes cover property crimes which target the household more generally (for example, burglary, criminal damage, or vehicle-related theft) and respondents are asked whether anyone currently residing in the household has experienced any such incident^{[footnote 16]}.

The year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 combined CSEW shows there were around 120,000 incidents of personal hate crime and 70,000 incidents of household hate crime a year^{[footnote 17]}. Total CSEW crime incidents were around 2,578,000 incidents of personal crime and 3,536,000 incidents of household crime a year overall in the CSEW for the equivalent combined period (Appendix Table 7). While 42 per cent of incidents of overall CSEW crime were personal crimes, just under two thirds (63%) of hate crime incidents were personal crimes.

The combined year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW estimates showed that 0.3 per cent of adults were victims of any hate crime in the 12 months prior to interview. A similar percentage were victims of personal hate crime (0.2% of adults) as were victims of household hate crime (0.2% of households). To put these figures in context, across all CSEW crime, around four per cent of adults were victims of personal crime and around ten per cent of households were a victim of household crime (Appendix Table 9).

Over the longer term, the decline observed in the number of hate crime incidents was also reflected in the prevalence of hate crime. There was a statistically significant fall^{[footnote 18]} in the percentage of adults who were victims of hate crime from 0.6 per cent in the combined year ending March 2008 to year ending March 2009 CSEW to 0.3 per cent in the combined year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW. Over the same time period, there was also a fall in prevalence of crime overall in the CSEW, from 23 per cent of respondents in the combined year ending March 2008 to year ending March 2009 CSEW to 14 per cent in the combined year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW.

Three per cent of crime incidents overall in the CSEW were perceived to be hate crime incidents, a similar level to previous years (all 3%). As in previous years, the proportion of incidents that were perceived to be hate crime varied by crime type. For example, ten per cent of violence without injury incidents were perceived to be hate crime whereas three per cent of criminal damage incidents were perceived to be hate crime (Appendix Table 10).

Violent crimes and criminal damage offences accounted for the majority of hate crime incidents in the CSEW, with 45 per cent of hate crime incidents being violence, and a fifth (20%) being criminal damage. In comparison, only 18 per cent of overall CSEW crime was violence (Table 3.1).

Table 3.1: Percentage of hate crime incidents, by type of offence, year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW

Percentages		England and Wales
Type of incident	All hate crime	All CSEW crimes
PERSONAL CRIME
Violence without injury	28	9
Violence with injury	17	9
Robbery	5	3
Theft from person	7	7
Other theft of personal property	2	11
ALL PERSONAL CRIME	59	39
HOUSEHOLD CRIME
Criminal damage	20	18
Burglary	10	11
Vehicle-related theft	5	15
Bicycle theft	1	5
Other household theft	5	13
ALL HOUSEHOLD CRIME	41	61
Unweighted base	724	18,986

Source: CSEW, ONS

3.2 Victimisation by personal and household characteristics

Analysis of victimisation by personal and household characteristics showed that for personal hate crime (as with CSEW crime overall, Appendix Table 11), the risk of being a victim varied by socio-demographic characteristics.

It should be noted that differences in victimisation rates between ethnic groups may be at least partly attributable to factors other than ethnicity. Previous research (Jansson, 2006; Salisbury and Upson, 2004) has shown that people with a Mixed ethnic background are most at risk of crime. However, multivariate analyses identified that, for the key crime types, ethnicity was not independently associated with the risk of victimisation (Jansson et al., 2007). The proportion of young people in the Mixed ethnic group was, for example, found to be large in comparison to other ethnic groups; and young people are at a higher risk of victimisation (Flatley et al., 2010). There are also inter-relationships between other personal characteristics. Furthermore, the nature of the hate crimes identified by the CSEW will be proportionately different to the crime mix of the overall survey. For example, hate crimes are more likely to be violent crimes than for all CSEW crime.

The risk of being a victim of personal hate crime in the year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW (Appendix Table 11) was highest, for example, among:

• people aged 16 to 24 (0.4% experienced personal hate crime)
• in particular, men aged 16 to 24 (0.4% of 16 to 24-year-old men experienced personal hate crime, compared with fewer than 0.05% of men aged 75 and over)
• those with the religious group Muslim (0.7%) compared with 0.1% of Christian respondents
• people with Black/African/Caribbean/Black British (0.5%) backgrounds compared with White adults (0.1%)
• those whose marital status was single or separated (0.3% compared with 0.1% of married adults)

The risk of being a victim of household hate crime (Appendix Table 12) was highest among, for example, people who:

• were social renters (0.4% experienced household hate crime compared with, for example, 0.1% of owner occupiers)
• lived in a household within the 20% most deprived areas, by English Indices of Deprivation (0.3% compared with 0.1% among those who lived in households within the 20% least deprived areas)

3.3 Repeat victimisation

Repeat victimisation^{[footnote 19]} is defined here as being a victim of the same type of hate crime more than once in the last year^{[footnote 20]}. Levels of repeat victimisation account for differences between CSEW estimates of victimisation rates (Appendix Table 9) and incidence rates (Appendix Table 8). For instance, high levels of repeat victimisation will be demonstrated by lower victimisation rates when compared with corresponding incidence rates (see for example, ONS, Crime in England and Wales - year ending March 2020, Annual Trend and Demographic tables).   Incidents of hate crime were also more likely to be repeatedly experienced for household crime offences than for personal crime offences. The year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 combined surveys showed 27 per cent of victims of household hate crime had been victimised more than once in the previous year, compared with 16 per cent of victims of personal hate crime. This difference was larger than that found in overall CSEW crime (20% of victims of CSEW household crime were repeat victims, compared with 18% of victims of CSEW personal crime; Figure 3.2 and Appendix Table 13).

Figure 3.2: Percentage of victims who were victimised more than once in the previous year, 2017/18 to 2019/20 CSEW

Source: CSEW, ONS

3.4 Reporting hate crime

The CSEW asks people who experienced crimes in the past year whether or not the police came to know about the incident, that is, whether or not they reported themselves or the police came to know about it in another way (for example, someone else reported it or the police arrived at the scene of crime). Based on the year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW, overall 47 per cent of hate crime incidents came to the attention of the police, similar to the proportion of hate crimes in previous survey years (Table 3.2). The proportion of hate crime incidents that came to the attention of the police was higher than that for all CSEW crime, which was 38 per cent. The difference in reporting rates was most marked for household crime (Appendix Table 14).

The main reason for the differences in the proportion of hate crimes coming to the attention of the police compared with overall crime is likely to be due to the type of hate crimes identified by the CSEW. For example, Table 3.1 showed that 45 per cent of hate crime incidents were for violence compared with only 18 per cent of overall CSEW crime. Conversely, only 10 per cent of hate crime incidents were personal theft, compared with 19 per cent of overall CSEW crime. These two incident types have different reporting rates to the police, with violent incidents having consistently had a higher reporting rate over a number of years (49% in Table D10 ONS, Crime in England and Wales - year ending March 2020, Annual Trend and Demographic tables) compared with the reporting rate to the police for personal theft incidents (23% of theft from the person and 31% Other theft of personal property offences).

Table 3.2: Percentage of CSEW crime incidents reported to the police, year ending March 2008 and year ending March 2009 to year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020

Percentages					England and Wales
	2007/08 to 2008/09	2009/10 to 2011/12	2012/13 to 2014/15	2015/16 to 2017/18	2017/18 to 2019/20
All hate crime	51	49	48	53	47
All CSEW crime	39	39	40	40	38

Source: CSEW, ONS

3.5 Racially and religiously motivated hate crime

This section provides additional information for racially or religiously motivated hate crimes.

Racially motivated hate crime

Based on data from the CSEW for year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020, it is estimated that there were 104,000 incidents of racially motivated hate crime per year (Appendix Table 7). Most incidents (66,000) were personal crimes (such as assault or personal theft offences). From these combined surveys, 0.2 per cent of adults were estimated to be victims of a racially motivated hate crime in the 12 months prior to interview.

Adults in all other ethnic groups were more likely to be victims of a racially motivated hate crime than White adults (for example, 1% of Asian and 0.9% of Black adults compared with 0.1% of White adults, year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW). For overall CSEW crime (of which hate crime incidents are a subset), adults from all other ethnic groups were also more likely to be victims than white adults (20% of adults from mixed ethnic groups, 15% of adults from an Asian ethnic group and 15% from a Black ethnic group compared with 14% of White adults; Table 3.3).

Table 3.3: Percentage of adults aged 16 and over who were victims of racially-motivated hate crime and all CSEW crime, by ethnic group, year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020, CSEW

Percentages			England and Wales
	All racially motivated hate crime	All CSEW crime	Unweighted base
ALL ADULTS	0.2	14.2	102,612
Ethnic group
White	0.1	13.9	91,345
Mixed/multiple ethnic groups	0.3	20.0	1,163
Asian/Asian British	1.0	15.3	6,156
Black/African/Caribbean/Black British}	0.9	15.2	2,855
Other ethnic group	1.1	15.7	862

Source: CSEW, ONS

Analysis of racially motivated hate crime by religion shows that Muslim adults were more likely to be a victim of racially motivated hate crime (1.2%) than those adults who identified as Christian or stated they had no religion (0.1%; Appendix Table 11).

Religiously motivated hate crime

Based on data from the CSEW for year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020, it is estimated that there were 42,000 incidents of religiously motivated hate crime per year (Appendix Table 7). Personal crimes (30,000 incidents) made up a greater proportion of these than household crimes (12,000).

From these combined surveys, it was estimated that 0.1 per cent of adults were victims of a religiously motivated hate crime in the 12 months prior to interview. The year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW showed that Muslim adults were the most likely to be a victim of religiously motivated hate crime (0.8%; Appendix Table 11).

Adults with an Asian ethnic group were more likely to be victims of a religiously motivated hate crime than adults of White ethnic group (0.5% and less than 0.1% respectively, year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW; Appendix Table 11).

While there have been falls over the longer-term in race, sexual orientation and disability hate crimes as estimated by the CSEW, the trend in religious hate crimes has been relatively flat. The latest estimate of 42,000 incidents was similar to that from the combined year ending March 2008 and year ending March 2009 surveys (38,000).

3.6 Additional information from the CSEW

As well as the level of hate crime estimates from the CSEW, additional information is available on victim satisfaction with the police following a hate crime incident, the emotional impact of being a victim and respondents’ worry about hate crime. Where possible, comparisons are made with overall crime as measured by the CSEW.

Victim satisfaction with the police

CSEW respondents who were victims of crime and had contact with the police in the last 12 months were asked how satisfied they were with the way the police handled the matter. Based on the combined year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 surveys, 55 per cent of hate crime victims were very or fairly satisfied with the handling of the matter, a lower proportion than for victims of CSEW crime overall (66% were very or fairly satisfied). Hate crime victims were also more likely to be very dissatisfied (27%) with the police handling of the matter than victims of all CSEW crime (17%; Appendix Table 17 and Figure 3.3).

The differences in victim satisfaction with the police for hate crime victims compared with all CSEW crime victims might in part be due to the type of crimes identified by the CSEW (as rates of police satisfaction differ by offence type – see Table S14 ONS, Crime in England and Wales - year ending March 2020, Supplementary tables).

Figure 3.3: Victim satisfaction with the police, 2017/18 to 2019/20 CSEW

Source: CSEW, ONS

The combined year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 surveys show that victims of hate crime were less likely to think the police had treated them fairly or with respect, compared with victims of CSEW crime overall. For example, in 70 per cent of hate crime incidents the victims thought the police treated them fairly, compared with 79 per cent of incidents of CSEW crime overall. Similarly, in 84 per cent of incidents of hate crime, victims thought the police treated them with respect, compared with 90 per cent of incidents of CSEW crime overall. These patterns were similar to previous years (Appendix Table 17).

Effects of hate crime

As part of the follow-up questions on their crime experience, victims were asked if they had an emotional reaction after the incident and, if so, how much they were affected and in which ways. According to the year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 surveys, victims of hate crime were more likely than victims of CSEW crime overall to say they were emotionally affected by the incident (96% and 83% respectively) and more likely to be ‘very much’ affected (36% and 15% respectively); this trend is similar over time (Appendix Table 18).

Of those who said they were emotionally affected, victims of hate crimes tended to be more affected than victims of all CSEW crime. For example, more than twice as many hate crime victims said they had suffered a loss of confidence or had felt vulnerable after the incident (42%), compared with all victims of CSEW crime (19%). Hate crime victims were also more than twice as likely to experience fear, difficultly sleeping, anxiety or panic attacks, depression or crying/tears compared with victims of overall CSEW crime (Figure 3.4). This is probably not due to the type of hate crimes identified by the CSEW, as victims of violent crime tend to be less likely to say they were emotionally affected than victims of other crime types. (Table 3.4 ONS Nature of crime tables year ending March 2020 Violence and Table 7.5 ONS Nature of crime tables year ending March 2020 Personal and other theft).

Figure 3.4: Emotional impact of hate crime incidents, year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW

Source: CSEW, ONS

Worry about being a victim of crime

The CSEW asks respondents how worried they are about being a victim of different types of crime. The year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW showed that overall four per cent of all adults were ‘very’ worried about being subject to a physical attack because of their skin colour, ethnic origin or religion. Unsurprisingly, as with the other perception questions, this was much higher among adults from all other ethnic backgrounds (for example, among Asian Ethnic backgrounds (16%) or Black or Black British Ethnic backgrounds (13%) than among White adults (2%); Appendix Table 19).

Annex – Provisional trends in racially or religiously aggravated offences to July 2020 under COVID-19 restrictions

This Annex provides information on trends in racially or religiously aggravated offences in England and Wales over the period when lockdown restrictions were in place because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Restrictions came into effect from 23 March 2020 and were gradually eased from 13 May 2020, with pubs and restaurants being allowed to re-open from 4 July 2020.

Racially or religiously aggravated offence data are used as they are available for all forces (excluding Greater Manchester Police) on a monthly basis. These data are provisional and subject to change as more information is received from the police.

Figure A1 shows the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences between January and July in both 2019 and 2020. In January and February 2020, the number of offences was higher than the previous year, continuing the upward trend in these offences seen in recent years. This increase was thought to be driven by general crime recording improvements but may also reflect a greater proportion of victims coming forward to report hate crimes to the police and a genuine increase in these offences.

In March, April and May, the level of these offences in 2020 was lower than the previous year. This was particularly marked in April, where the number of offences was down almost a quarter (24%) on the same month in 2019. This pattern was similar to the equivalent non-aggravated offences over the same time period (Figure A2) and reflects the reduction in crime reported by the Office for National Statistics in their Coronavirus and crime in England and Wales: August 2020 statistical bulletin.

Figure A1: Number of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police, January to July 2019 and 2020

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office. Figures exclude GMP.

In June and July, the pattern was different. The number of racially or religiously aggravated offences in June 2020 was a third higher (34%) than in June 2019. Increases were seen across most forces, with 27 forces seeing an increase of a quarter (25%) or more (data not shown). The level of these offences remained high in July.

Figure A2 shows an extended version of Figure 2 from the main bulletin - indexed trends in racially or religiously aggravated offences and their non-aggravated equivalents. The general trend in both series was similar – with offences gradually increasing over the time period shown. However, the aggravated offences trend showed a greater fluctuation and apparent seasonality than the non-aggravated equivalent offences. Spikes can be seen in racially or religiously aggravated offences which were not evident in the non-aggravated equivalents in July 2016 (following the EU Referendum result), July 2017 (following the terrorist attacks) and June and July 2020.

Figure A2: Indexed trends in the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences and their non-aggravated equivalents¹ recorded by the police, April 2015 to July 2020

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office. Figures exclude GMP.
See Table 1.1 for list of offences covered.

The increases seen in June and July 2020 were likely to be related to the Black Lives Matters protests and far-right groups counter-protests in England and Wales following the death of George Floyd on the 25 May in the United States of America.

Figure A3 shows there were increases in both racially or religiously aggravated and non-aggravated public fear, alarm or distress offences in May, June and July 2020. Increases in these offences are common when there are an increased number of protests. There may also be other factors behind the increase in these offences.

As public fear, alarm or distress offences account for around three-quarters^{[footnote 21]} of racially or religiously aggravated offences, they tend to drive trends in these aggravated offences, hence the rise in seen in June and July in Figure A2.

Figure A3: Indexed trends in the number of public fear, alarm or distress offences (aggravated and non- aggravated) recorded by the police, January 2019 to July 2020

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office. Figures exclude GMP.

4. Hate Crime data sources and quality

4.1 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 (now the Code of Practice for 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.

4.2 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. Data for Greater Manchester Police have not been included in this bulletin as they have been unable to supply data due following the implementation of a new IT system in July 2019.

Forces either supply the data at least monthly via the Home Office Data Hub (HODH) 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. Therefore, counts of hate crime via the HODH are dependent on the flag being used for each hate crime offence. 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. From year ending March 2016, police forces who returned data manually were required to provide an offence group breakdown for recorded hate crimes; prior to year ending March 2016 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 example, an offence could be motivated by hostility to race and religion, so would be counted under both strands but would only constitute one offence.

It is known that for some police forces, the ‘flagging’ of data could be improved. For example, there may be crimes that are operationally treated as a hate crime but fail to be identified as a hate crime on their crime recording system. In July 2018, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) published a report on how the police deal with hate crime, including how crimes are flagged. Findings included a lack of recognition in forces about how important the flagging of hate crimes is and concerns around the lack of effective audit arrangements to check flags had been applied correctly.

The full report can be found here: Understanding the difference: the initial police response to hate crime.

Further information on how the police record hate crime can be found in the College of Policing Hate Crime Operational Guidance 2014 publication. This publication is due to be updated with new guidance in October 2020 following a consultation launched in October 2019.

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 HODH).

These checks include:

• looking for any large or unusual changes in hate crimes from the previous year
• looking for outliers.
• checking that the number of hate crimes by strand 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 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.

From April 2016, the Home Office began collecting information from the police on the perceived religion of victims of religious hate crimes – that the religion targeted by the offender. While in the majority of offences the perceived and actual religion of the victim will be the same, in some cases this will differ. For example, if anti-Muslim graffiti is sprayed on a religious temple of another faith, this would be recorded as an offence of racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage and flagged by the respective police force as a religious hate crime against Muslims. This collection was voluntary in year ending March 2017 and made mandatory for year ending March 2018.

4.3 Crime survey for England and Wales

The CSEW is a face-to-face victimisation survey. People resident in households in England and Wales are asked about their experiences of a selected range of offences in the 12 months prior to the interview, including questions to determine whether an incident was a hate crime. The CSEW is seen as a reliable indicator for long-term trends, particularly for the more common types of crime experienced by the general population. However, as the CSEW is a general household population survey, the number of hate crime incidents and victims estimated in a single survey year is too unreliable to report on. Therefore, three annual datasets have been combined in order to provide a larger sample which can be used to produce more robust estimates for hate crime.

More information regarding the coverage, coherence and accuracy of the CSEW and police recorded crime can be found in the User Guide to Crime Statistics for England and Wales, the Crime in England and Wales Quality and Methodology Information report and (for CSEW only) the CSEW technical report.

5. Further information

Accompanying tables

The data tables can be found here:
Hate crime, England and Wales, 2019 to 2020

Other related publications

Previous hate crime statistical bulletins published by the Home Office are available here:
Hate crime statistics

The Office for National Statistics publishes quarterly publications on crime in England and Wales:
Crime and justice

Information on crime outcomes can be found here:
Crime outcomes in England and Wales statistics

Police recorded crime and outcomes Open Data Tables

The True Vision website contains more information about hate crime and how to report it

The Crown Prosecution Service website also carries information about hate crime, including policy and guidance and performance information, which can be found here:
CPS hate crime

The government’s plan for dealing with hate crime in England and Wales can be found here:
Hate crime action plan 2016 to 2020

Hate crime statistics for Northern Ireland can be found here:
Police Service of Northen Ireland: Hate motivation statistics

Hate crime statistics for Scotland for 2019/20 can be found here:
Hate Crime in Scotland 2019 to 2020
(figures published by the Scottish Government are based on the number of offenders charged, rather than police recorded crime)

Feedback and enquiries

We welcome feedback on the annual statistics release. If you have any feedback or enquiries about this publication, please contact Crime and Policing Statistics via crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gov.uk.

1. Forces may collect wider hate crime data; these are not centrally monitored by the Home Office. ↩

2. Page 30: Hate Crime Operational Guidance ↩

3. lbid, page 101. ↩

4. All police recorded crime figures exclude Greater Manchester Police who were unable to provide data for year ending March 2020. ↩

5. Crime-recording: making the victim count ↩

6. Statistics on Crime in England and Wales ↩

7. Estimation based upon data from 31 forces who supplied data to the Home Office Data Hub. ↩

8. The CSEW asks questions about whether an incident was deemed by the victim to be motivated by one of the five centrally monitored strands. 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. ↩

9. Includes cases where religion has been flagged as unknown. ↩

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. ↩

11. Avon and Somerset, Bedfordshire, Cheshire, Cleveland, Derbyshire, Devon and Cornwall, Dorset, Durham, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Merseyside, Metropolitan Police, Norfolk, North Wales, North Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Northumbria, South Wales, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley, Warwickshire, West Mercia, West Yorkshire. ↩

12. These forces were: Avon and Somerset, Bedfordshire, Cheshire, Cleveland, Derbyshire, Devon and Cornwall, Dorset, Durham, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Merseyside, Metropolitan Police, Norfolk, North Wales, North Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Northumbria, South Wales, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley, Warwickshire, West Mercia, West Yorkshire. ↩

13. Data were extracted on 30 June 2020. ↩

14. See the Introduction for more information on the CSEW. ↩

15. See Section 2.5 in ONS’s User Guide to Crime Statistics in England and Wales for a discussion of measures of CSEW crime. ↩

16. Numbers do not sum to overall hate crime incident total due to rounding. ↩

17. Statistical significance testing for all crime has been assumed based on significant changes observed in the 2 sub-categories of personal and household crime. ↩

18. See Section 2.5 of ONS’s User Guide to Crime Statistics for England and Wales for a discussion of repeat victimisation. ↩

19. Where incidents of a similar nature that are probably carried out by the same perpetrator(s) have occurred, CSEW estimates only include the first five incidents in this ‘series’ of victimisations, see Section 2.5 of ONS’s User Guide to Crime Statistics in England and Wales. ↩

20. 72% of racially of religiously aggravated offences were for public fear, alarm or distress in year ending March 2020. ↩