Nottingham Citizens’ report of their Hate Crime Commission ‘No Place for Hate’ has been presented and published, following the launch of of their ‘Citizens’ Commission’ earlier this year.
Nottingham Citizens is a group geared towards promoting justice and the ‘common good’ and is made up of 40 communities from across Nottinghamshire.
Their aim is to ensure that authorities are held to account and institutions take responsibility for issues in the area.
The report is based on over 1,000 survey responses, submissions from experts, interviews and focus groups.
Leaders from across Nottingham’s civil society, including Lilian Greenwood MP, gathered at Nottingham Trent University to present the final report of the organisation’s Hate Crime Commission.
“It is shocking that people don’t feel like they can report hate crimes”
The findings of the report suggest that there are 2,800 unreported hate crimes in Nottinghamshire and this figure is even higher due to a broad misunderstanding of what actually constitutes a hate crime.
Olivia Brady, a second year student at the University of Nottingham said: “I think that it is shocking that people don’t feel like they can report hate crimes”
Since the Hate Crime Monitoring Project and specialist offices teams were disbanded five years ago, there has been a 40% drop in the number of hate crimes recorded by Nottinghamshire Police.
“We need to identify the group which is on the receiving end of the most hate crimes and then there must be a collaboration amongst the communities of this group and the police which does not currently exist”
38% of women reporting hate crime said it was explicitly linked to their gender in an online survey.
However, the report said that gender is a category that is currently unrecognised in anti-hate crime legislation and enforcement.
Of 262 hate crime victims identified in their survey, only seven had their cases taken to court, and only two of these resulted in conviction.
A third year Economics student told Impact: “I think we need to identify the group which is on the receiving end of the most hate crimes and then there must be a collaboration amongst the communities of this group and the police which does not currently exist”.
The key recommendations of the report involve the establishment of a new interagency panel to ensure all cases are properly scrutinised and the creation of a unified ‘Joint Hate Crime Services Hub’ to provide support and advocacy for victims.
The report also advocates the creation of a ‘Hate Crime officer team’ within the Nottinghamshire Police, and a specialist post within the Community Safety team in Nottingham City Council in order to tackle this issue at different levels.
Furthermore, the commission strongly recommended a collaboration between Nottinghamshire Police, Nottingham Women’s Centre and other groups specialising in gender equality in order to monitor crimes motivated by misogynistic intent.
Natalia Deane
Image: Nottingham Citizens via Twitter
