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What is Hate Crime?
Hatred is a strong term that goes beyond simply causing offence or hostility. Hate crime is any criminal offence committed against a person or property that is motivated by an offender's hatred of someone because of their:
- race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality or national origins
- religion
- gender or gender identity
- sexual orientation
- disability
Hate crime can take many forms including:
- physical attacks – such as physical assault, damage to property, offensive graffiti, neighbour disputes and arson
- threat of attack – including offensive letters, abusive or obscene telephone calls, groups hanging around to intimidate and unfounded, malicious complaints
- verbal abuse or insults - offensive leaflets and posters, abusive gestures, dumping of rubbish outside homes or through letterboxes, and bullying at school or in the workplace
Our definition of a hate crime:
Any incident, which constitutes a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by prejudice or hate.
Hate Incident
Any incident, which may or may not constitute a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person, as being motivated by prejudice or hate.
Hate incidents include those motivated by homophobia, transphobia, a prejudice towards someone’s faith or disability and sectarian incidents.
All hate crimes are hate incidents. However some hate incidents, such as inappropriate name calling in a non-confrontational situation, may not constitute a criminal offence and therefore will not be recorded as a hate crime.
