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CPS report on hate crime prosecutions 2015/16 published

CPS report on hate crime prosecutions 2015/16 published

Categories: Latest News

Wednesday July 13 2016

The Crown Prosecution Service has published its eighth Hate Crime Report detailing the number of hate crimes prosecuted over the period 2015/16 and comparing to the previous 12 months. The report covers the different strands of hate crime and the prosecution and conviction rates arising from hate crime cases referred to the CPS by the police.

In 2015/16 the CPS completed 15,442 hate crime prosecutions, an increase of 4.7% on the 14,738 hate crime prosecutions completed in 2014/15. The number of hate crimes reported to police in 2014/15 were 52,528 of which 46,184 were racial and religious hate crimes (88%).

The 2015/16 Home Office statistics on police recorded hate crime for the period April 2015 to March 2016 have not yet been published and it is difficult to assess the number of prosecutions noted in the CPS report as a percentage of reported hate crimes over the same period.

In 2015/16, the CPS completed 13,032 prosecutions for racially and religiously aggravated hate crime, an increase of 1.9% on the previous year when it completed 12,795 cases, or 27.7% of the total racial and religious hate crimes reported to police in 2014/15.

It is not known how the 1.9% increase in the number of racially and religiously aggravated hate crime prosecutions compares to the total number of reported racial and religious hate crimes in 2015/16 and whether the CPS has improved on the previous 12 months’ prosecution rate of just over a quarter of all reported cases.

Prosecutions for racially and religiously aggravated hate crime made up 84.4% of all CPS hate crime prosecutions in 2015/16, compared to 86.8% in 2014/15.

The conviction rate in racially and religiously aggravated cases increased from 83.5% in 2014/15 to 83.8% in 2015/16. This is marginally higher than the 83.2% conviction rate across all hate crime prosecutions in 2015/16.

The proportion of successfully completed prosecutions with an announced and recorded sentence uplift amongst racially and religiously aggravated prosecutions was 34.8% in 2015/16, a significant increase from 12.0% in 2014/15. Sentence uplifts amongst all hate crime categories was 33.8% in 2015/16. Sentence uplifts refer to the ‘enhanced sentencing’ procedures at the disposal of courts when sentencing for criminal offences with a proven ‘aggravated’ element.

In 2015/16, the proportion of unsuccessful cases due to victim issues amongst racially and religiously aggravated hate crime prosecutions remained broadly the same as 2014/15 at 31.9%. This is marginally different to the 31% figure across all hate crime prosecutions in 2015/16 and compares less favourably to the level across all CPS crime prosecutions for general crime which stands at 21.3%.

The figures show that around third of racial and religious hate crime cases are adversely impacted by conditions “where a victim retracts [or] unexpectedly fails to attend court or their evidence does not support the case.”

In 2015/16, the proportion of unsuccessful cases due to acquittal after trial within racially and religiously aggravated hate crime prosecutions improved slightly, falling from 29.1% (616 cases) in 2014/15 to 28% (591 cases). This is better than the 28.9% acquittal after trial level for all hate crime prosecutions in 2015/16, but still shows that around 1 in 4 racial and religious hate crime cases end in acquittal after trial.

Over three quarters (76.4%) of racially and religiously aggravated hate crime prosecutions in 2015/16 were principally recorded as offences against the person. This is much higher than the proportion for other hate crime categories, including disability (48%) and homophobic and transphobic (59.2%) hate crimes.

Within each category, 12,295 (94%) prosecutions were for racially aggravated offences and 737 (6%) were for religiously aggravated offences.

The number of prosecutions for racially aggravated hate crimes increased by 1% (165 prosecutions) from 2014/15 to 2015/16 while the number of prosecutions for religiously aggravated hate crimes increased by almost 11% (72 prosecutions) between 2014/15 and 2015/16.

84.1% of prosecutions for racially aggravated hate crimes in 2015/16 resulted in a conviction compared to 79.1% for religiously aggravated hate crime prosecutions in 2015/16. The proportion of successful convictions for religiously aggravated hate crimes is down from 83.8% in 2014/15.

Almost one quarter (24.4%) of prosecutions for racially and religiously aggravated hate crimes in 2015/16 were in London, higher than the 22.7% figure across all hate crime categories.

The North West region (Cumbria, Greater Manchester and Lancashire) had the highest conviction rate (87%) for racially and religiously aggravated hate crime prosecutions in 2015/16, while London had the lowest (77.5%).

According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales combined surveys for 2012/13 and 2014/15, Muslims were 12 times more likely to be victims of racially aggravated offences than individuals reporting a Christian, Buddhist or no religion background.

In 2014/15, the police referred 12,071 racially and religiously aggravated hate crime cases to the CPS for decision. This represented a slight fall on the previous year’s total of 12,184.

Today’s reports reveals that the number of referrals fell again in 2015/16 to 10,728, a fall over the reporting period of 12.0%. The fall in police referrals is associated with racially aggravated offences only. The report observes that the CPS “cannot control the number of cases referred by the police for decision [but] reasons for the decline in 2015/16 will be explored with police colleagues and appropriate action identified.”

According to the Home Office’s crime outcomes report for 2014/15  almost half of all crimes were closed without a suspect being identified (49.8%). Figures for 2015/16 are not yet available and it is not clear how the police referral rate on hate crime compares to general crime in the 2015/16 period.

The low rate of referral for prosecution coheres with the results of an FOI published in the London Evening Standard several months ago which revealed that while racial and religious hate crime in the capital between 2011 and 2015 almost doubled, from 7,989 to 14,111 (43.4%) the number of prosecutions and other police action for racial and religious hate crime offences fell from 3,343 to 3,056 over the same period.

At a time when racial and religious hate crime is rising, religious hate crime increased by 43% between 2013/14 and 2014/15 and by 45% between 2012/13 and 2013/14 while race hate crime increased by 15% in the period 2013/14 to 2014/15, a fall in the number of police referrals and the rate of unsuccessful prosecutions arising from victims issues, as well as the wider problem of hate crime under-reporting, should be a matter of urgent attention for police and crown prosecutors.

The report can be read here.

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