Hate crimes
The 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.
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.
There are masses of statistics around hate crimes. It is difficult to see or trace trends at the moment because of the need to compare like with like. Because hate crime recording is a recent introduction, figures for earlier years are either unavailable or untrusted.
Information about gay and lesbian hate crimes is buried in other statistics which makes them difficult to extrapolate.
Homosexual men are four times more likely to be attacked than straight men.
Gay hate crime rose by almost a quarter in a single year, but some of that may be due to better reporting.
London was the worst area for gay hate crime, incidents reported rose from 1,365 in 2003 to 1,536 in 2006 (increase 12.5%). However much quieter Gwent saw a 210% increase – from 21 to 65 crimes. Surrey reported 96 incidents – an increase of 134% – and Merseyside 137, up 49%.
In December 2009 it was revealed that homophobic hate crimes have increased a further 14% on the preceding figures since April 2009.
The Religious and Racial Hatred Act has been given the Royal Assent.
Text updated 15 December 2009
