The British government released its latest hate crime statistics for England and Wales (2021-22) with the key finding that hate crimes recorded by the police have increased by 26% in the year ending March 2022 compared with the previous year.
It is important to note the caveat that it is not clear if this represents a “genuine rise,” both because there have been significant improvements in the way the police record crime and victims also may have greater confidence in reporting such crimes to the police.
These statistics provide a vital insight into the patterns and most common forms of hostility in England and Wales towards someone based on particular personal characteristics (race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and transgender identity).
But to gather a holistic picture, these hate crime statistics must be set within the context of wider trends in hostility and prejudice reflected in media narratives, social media use and political discourse.
Of a total of 155,841 offences recorded by the police, the monitored strands of hate crime, starting with the most common first, were race (109,843), sexual orientation (26,152), disability (14,242), religion (8,730) and transgender (4,355).
These numbers exceed the total offences because some crimes can have more than one motivating factor.
The trends are quite different when the focus is on increase since the previous year. In descending order, transgender hate crimes have increased by 56%, disability by 43%, sexual orientation by 41%, religion by 37% and race by 19%.
The report states that these annual increases are in part because of lower crimes recorded during the periods of COVID-19 restrictions, but that there may have been an increase in hate crimes against transgender people because of increased discussion on social media around transgender issues.
The UK has often been regarded as one of the safest countries worldwide for sexual minorities, and so the sharp increase in related hate crimes is a reminder that more has to be done to tackle such prejudices, even if they are taken seriously by the authorities.
While the report states that there may have been lower recorded crimes during the COVID-19 lockdowns, racist and religiously discriminative media narratives must be acknowledged.
