Hate Crime & Cohesion

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 definition  as agreed in 2007 by the main statutory criminal justice agencies. There are five centrally monitored strands of hate crime:

  • race or ethnicity;
  • religion or beliefs;
  • sexual orientation;
  • disability; and
  • transgender identity.

A person does not have to be an actual member of an identifiable group to be a victim; the defining factor is the perpetrator’s motivation.

Local research

In 2016, the Research Group was commissioned to provide a briefing report on Police Recorded Hate Crime in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough over time for elected members. The report is split into two sections; the first covering local figures from the police recorded crime and the second providing context and an explanation of cohesion concepts.  This report can be viewed below.

Bespoke briefings have also been produced, focusing on recorded Hate Crime in South Cambridgeshire and East Cambridgeshire. These can also be found below.

An infographic was produced as a summary of the findings (click the image below to go to infographic), which has now been updated using 2017 statistics for Cambridgeshire & Peterborough.

Further information and links

For more information about what hate crime is and how to report it, please click here 

Recent research focusing on race equality was published by the Human Rights Equality Commission and can be found here

Data story about hate crime in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

Reports

All of the following reports can also be found in the document library