What is hate crime?

Hate crime includes any criminal offence or non-criminal incident that was motivated by prejudice against someone's actual or perceived: 

race
religion
disability
sexual orientation and/or
transgender identity.

Hate crime can include verbal abuse, online abuse, harassment or violence from strangers, neighbours, or people you know well.

If you believe you were targeted because of your identity, you can contact us for support, advice and practical assistance. We can also help you in dealing with the police and other agencies.

Intersectionality

If you belong to more than one marginalised group, you may face overlapping forms of prejudice. For instance, an individual could experience overlapping prejudice and violence motivated by both racism and homophobia. This can lead to individuals facing escalated levels of hate crime and experiencing added barriers to getting help.

You are entitled to have a crime recorded within several hate crime categories if that is how you see what happened.

36% of people who experience hate crime are very emotionally affected by it compared with just 13% who experience crime in general.

Home Office, (2015) Hate crime, England and Wales, 2014/15, statistical bulletin 05/15.

Hate crime can cause deep and lasting impacts on individuals who experience them. It also has community impacts beyond those directly affected by forcing people to be constantly alert for the possibility that it could happen to them.

Non-criminal hate incidents

You don’t need to know if what you experienced was a crime to get in touch with us. 

Even if the abuse you faced was not a crime, we can help you get it re-coded by the police as a non-criminal hate incident. That can help them map problems and potentially prevent the situation from getting worse.

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