What is Hate Crime?
Hate crime can refer to both hate incidents and hate crimes.
A hate incident is defined as “any non-crime incident which is perceived by the victim or any other person to being motivated by a hostility or prejudice towards that person because of his race, religious belief, disability, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity.”
A hate crime is defined as “any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice towards that person because of his race, religious belief, disability, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The only difference between an incident and a crime is that the incident is not legally actionable and does not constitute criminal offence.
If you believe a crime was targeted at someone, even in part, because of prejudice or hostility about any of the characteristics mentioned above, then it’s treated as a hate crime. This means that if you, your family or friends believe it was a hate crime, then the police will treat it as such.
ISCRE is part of the Suffolk Hate Crime Partnership, a multi agency approach aimed at:
- preventing hate crime happening by challenging the attitudes and behaviours that foster hatred, and encouraging early intervention to reduce the risk of incidents escalating
- increasing the reporting of hate crime that occurs by building victims’ confidence to come forward and seek justice, and working with partners at local level including the Suffolk Police and the Suffolk Hate Crime Service to ensure the right support is available when they do
The Suffolk Hate Crime Partnership is funded by the Ministry of Justice to build the capacity of communities to respond to Hate Crime. The Partnership consists of:
- Ipswich and Suffolk Council for Racial Equality (ISCRE).
- Optua (user led Disability Charity)
- JIMAS (a national Muslim Charity benefitting all sectors of the community)
- Victim Support
- Suffolk Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Network(comprising 4 individual groups including Mens, Women’s, Transgender & LikeMinds addressing Mental Health issues)
- OneVoice4Travellers (regional charity against violence within and to the community)
- MECAN (a Minority Ethnic Community Action Network of more than 20 groups and over 600 individuals)
- Suffolk Police and Suffolk County Council are co-opted partners
