How should police behave if I say I am a victim of hate crime? But based on the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which is generally accepted to provide a more accurate picture of the scale of crime, there were an average of 222,000 hate crimes per year between 20. In 2014/5 there were 52,528 hate crimes recorded by the police, an increase of 18%, compared with the 44,471 recorded in 2013/14. According to Dr Nathan Hall, from the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Portsmouth, hate crimes are far more prevalent than official statistics suggest.

It is open to police to add another category – such as gender – if they notice a trend. Police record as a hate crime any offence perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on any of five protected characteristics: race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity. The Fawcett Society says women and girls face a “tidal wave of abuse and harassment” every day. Research by Demos into misogynistic abuse online found that 6,500 women were targeted by 10,000 aggressive and misogynistic tweets using the words “slut” or “whore” in a three-week period in the UK. In a recent poll, the group End Violence Against Women found that 85% of women aged 18-24 had experienced unwanted sexual attention and 45% had experienced sexual touching. What is the scale of misogynistic abuse women are suffering?Įnormous, is the simple answer.

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