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02 July 2009

An advertising campaign aimed at encouraging the reporting and awareness of hate crimes and incidents is being launched today by the Police Service.

The advertisements carry a simple message ‘nobody deserves this and nobody deserves to get away with it’ with photographic images representing the five main areas of hate crime - racist, homophobic, sectarian, religion and crimes against people with disabilities. The advertisements will appear on billboards and adshels for the next six weeks and will feature primarily in areas of high reporting -Belfast, Newtownabbey, Ballymena, Craigavon, Antrim, Cookstown, Magherafelt, Foyle and Coleraine. 

In 2008-2009 there were 771 racist hate crimes, 134 homophobic hate crimes, 35 faith/religion related hate crimes, 1,017 sectarian hate crimes and 28 disability related hate crimes. Over the same period in 2007-2008 there were 757 racist hate crimes, 114 homophobic hate crimes, 62 faith/religion related hate crimes, 1,056 sectarian hate crimes and 42 disability related hate crimes. 

Assistant Chief Constable Duncan McCausland said that whilst reports of hate crime to police had increased he believed that this is an indication that individuals felt more confident about reporting such incidents. However it is believed that there is still under-reporting and thus this is the main focus of the campaign.

He said: “Reporting hate crime is one way of ensuring that further incidents are prevented and offenders are brought to justice. We want to encourage people, whether they are victims of a crime or witnesses to an incident, to report it to police. There are a number of methods available to make reports; these are in person, telephone or online reporting.”

Assistant Chief Constable McCausland continued: “We have recently seen attacks on members of our community.  As a Police Service we are fully committed to playing our role in preventing such dreadful crimes occurring.

“Whilst police have a key part to play in dealing with hate crime incidents, the police alone cannot solve what is a wider societal issue. We all have a responsibility to unite against hate crime.

“The advertisements put the issue in clear and simple terms - hate crime is unacceptable, no one deserves it and no one deserves to get away with it; to stop it, report it.”

Statistics for hate crimes and clearance rates are available on the PSNI website

http://www.psni.police.uk/3._08_09_hate_incidents_and_crimes.pdf

Hate crime figures detailed in the press release are for the period 01 April 2008 to 31 March 2009. 

A hate-motivated crime is defined as any incident that constitutes a criminal offence, perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by prejudice or hate.

The following motivation types are used to identify and categorise hate crime offences in Northern Ireland: racist motivation, sectarian motivation, homophobic motivation, disability motivation, faith motivation and transphobic motivation.

As well as reporting incidents of hate crime in person, members of the public can also contact their local Hate Incident Minority Liaison Officer on 0845 600 8000, or online through the police websitewww.psni.police.uk/. In an emergency, members of the public should dial 999.

Hate Incident Minority Liaison Officers (HIMLOs) are based in every District Command Unit. Their role is to provide support, guidance, information and feedback to victims and potential victims of hate incidents. HIMLOs identify and engage with local minority and vulnerable groups. HIMLOs will personally contact all victims of hate incidents, unless contact has been declined, as soon as is practicable following notification of the incident.

Independent advisory groups including the Rainbow Project, Disability Action and NIGRA were consulted at the beginning of the design process.

This is the second phase of the campaign; the first ran in April 2008.