Photo: Out and About
The then Home Secretary, Jack Straw announced in October 2007 that he was considering adding a clause to the Criminal Justice Bill to ensure that hatred of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people became a crime. This follows a lengthy review and consideration of existing provisions. Eventually Parliament passed the Religious and Racial Hatred Act.
Gay men and lesbians are often attacked or killed because of their sexuality. These crimes have become known as hate crime, and as understanding and acceptance of gay men and lesbians has increased, so unfortunately have some of the hate crimes. In recent years there has been a recognition by politicians and also in the Courts that these crimes are serious and should be seriously punished.
Because hate crime recording is a recent introduction, figures for years before the recording of hate crimes are either unavailable or untrusted. Since recording was introduced, the trend appears to be a rising number of hate crimes each year, but some of that increase is expected to be due to more victims coming forward and better reporting systems, better awareness training etc.
Even places previously regarded as safe places for gay men and lesbians, including the centre of London and Amsterdam, have become very much less safe in recent years.
Homosexual men are four times more likely to be attacked than straight men.
In the UK the way statistics are both compiled and presented is ever-changing which makes it difficult to compare one year to another.
The Home Office – Hate Crime figures for the years 2009-10 and 2010-11, adults aged 16 and over, are frightening, especially the figures for older gay citizens, and the disparity between gay men and lesbians:
All adults – 91,313
16-24 - 7,551
25-34 - 12,462
35-44 - 15,983
45-54 - 15,117
55-64 - 15,766
65-74 - 12,898
75+ - 11,536
Men – 41,155
Women – 50,158
The statistics now show how under-reported the figures for previous years probably were. We were told that there were a total of 3,400 hate crimes against gay men and lesbians in 2008 and 4,805 in 2009. It was claimed there were also 312 transgender hate crimes, the first time an attempt had been made to quantify them, in 2009. Those figures now look ridiculously low.
Further resources:
BBC News – Have transgender people become easy targets?
Civil Rights Movement UK – Standing Up To Hate Crimes
Text Updated 7 April 2012
SP
