Anti-Trans Offences Double And Hate Crimes Reach Record High In England And Wales
Official statistics show there were a total of 155,841 hate crimes recorded by police in the year ending March 2022 – a new high. This is an increase of 26% from the previous 12 months and marks the largest annual rise since 2017.
With a total of 4,355 anti-trans incidents on record, offences against trans people rose by 56% from 2020/21. This is the largest proportional increase for any group. “Transgender issues have been heavily discussed on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in related hate crimes,” the Home Office report said.
The Home Office noted they were unsure if the figures had increased because of improvements made to the recording processes or because of genuine rises in hate crime. “It also thought that growing awareness of hate crime is likely to have led to improved identification of such offences,” it added. “It is difficult to assess whether the increase in the last year is a continuation of this trend, or whether the rise in hate crime is, in at least part, genuine.”
Additionally, some form of an increase was to be expected as crime was at lower levels in 2020/21 due to the public health restrictions in place because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Of the hate crimes recorded, more than half were public order offences, roughly 22% were stalking and harassment, 13% were violence against someone without injury, and 6% being violence with injury.
“Today’s official hate crime figures reflect the experience of our community in 2022,” said a statement from LGBTQ+ anti-abuse charity Galop. “Some will try to say this increase is just showing that the LGBT+ community’s trust in the police is improving – that this is not an increase in incidents, but in people coming forward. We strongly do not believe that to be the case. Demand for our hate crime support services, including the national LGBT+ hate crime helpline, has grown by 19% in just the last six months.”
Read related myGwork articles here:
LGBTQ+ Hate Crimes In West Of England Rise More Than 50%
UK Records Surge in Transphobic & Homophobic Hate Crimes
New FBI Hate Crimes Report Shows Increase in Anti-LGBT+ Attacks
Homophobic Hate Crimes Hit Record High In Scotland
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