Today, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of the Constabulary and Fire & rescue Services published its report into hate crime.
Coverage of the inspection report, commissioned by the previous Home Secretary, can be found here.
The Government continues to do all it can to tackle hate crime in society. Below are examples of the ways the Government has spearheaded action against this vile abuse.
Government action to tackle hate crime
- Published a Hate Crime Action Plan in 2016 to drive forward work across Government and with police and communities to tackle all forms of hate crime. We will refresh this plan later this year.
- Made changes to legislation to offer further protection for transgender and disabled people, which has led to the first convictions for the offence of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation
- Improved police recording of hate crime. Forces now capture data on all five monitored strands of hate crime: race or ethnicity, religion or beliefs, sexual orientation, disability, and transgender identity. Police also record the faith when a religious-based hate crime has taken place to increase understanding and help target police resources. Police have also started flagging hate crime offences that were either fully or in part committed online.
- Launched funding schemes to help protect places of worship from hate crime and to tackle hate crime at a local level. We have committed £3.4m to protect places of worship from hate crime, including £1m for vulnerable faith institutions following the Finsbury Park attack in June 2017. To date we have approved funding for 127 places of worship under these two schemes. Additionally we have committed £900,000 to support community led projects. We have funded 16 projects (tackling all five hate crime strands) in the first two years of the scheme, across England and Wales.
- Set up the Cross-Government Working Group on Tackling Antisemitism and the Cross-Government Working Group on anti-Muslim hatred, which allow us to remain particularly alive and respond quickly to issues in these communities.
- Supporting Streetwise’s Stand Up project, which works with young people in schools to challenge Islamophobia and antisemitism.
- Providing Tell MAMA with £2.5m of funding between 2017 and 2019 to support its work encouraging the reporting of anti-Muslim hatred and providing support to victims. Between January and March 2018, Tell MAMA hosted 77 community events reaching over 7,500 people and since 2017 they have established 10 Regional Advisory Boards to support their work.
- Announced £200,000 of Home Office funding for a new national hub to tackle the emerging threat of online hate crime. The hub went live in January 2018.
- Announced our intention to publish a joint DCMS-Home Office White Paper to set out more definitive steps on online harms and safety. The response also set out details relating to our social media code of practice and transparency reporting.
- Supported the European Commission Code of Conduct for Countering Illegal Hate Speech. This voluntary code has been signed by Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft, Twitter and Instagram. One main aim of the Code is to ensure that requests to remove content are reviewed in less than 24 hours, and content is removed if necessary.