Hate Crimes Soar in Britain but Police Let Perpetrators off the Hook
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Authorities in Britain have been doing less about hate crimes in 2016, as only one in four cases have resulted in any action against the perpetrators, which is a sharp decrease from last year’s figures, according to a report on Tuesday the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
While figures also show that in 2015, one in three cases of hate crimes would see a perpetrator charged, cautioned or dealt with in some other way by the police, this year’s figures are alarming because Britain has seen a major increase in hate crimes against minorities this year amid the Brexit referendum as well as increasingly xenophobic and anti-refugee rhetoric by politicians and media.
The report, based on records from 40 police departments in Britain that serve a population of almost 54 million people, found that only “27 percent of hate crimes recorded by police resulted in a ‘positive’ outcome such as a charge, summons, caution or restorative justice in 2015/16, compared with 35 percent the year before (2014/2015),” the Bureau of Investigative Journalism said, TeleSUR reported.
The report also found that there was a 20 percent increase of reported hate crimes, however, many more might have gone unreported due to people being discouraged because of the lack of action.
Meanwhile, publically available data showed that between 2014 and 2015, 82 percent of hate offenses recorded were race related crimes.
The news also comes as hate crimes against refugees, immigrants and minorities soared to record-high levels after Britain’s vote in favor of leaving the European Union.
Almost 6,200 hate crimes have been reported in Britain since the June 23 referendum, most of those being harassment, assault and other violence such as verbal abuse or spitting, with Muslims and Eastern Europeans saying they had been particularly targeted.
