Police Data

The number of racist incidents both reported to and recorded by the police rose from 11,878 in 1994/5 to 13,878 in 1997/98, 23,049 in 1998/99 and 47,814 in 1999/2000. Within police forces, there was a considerable variation in trends with the number of such incidents more than doubling in some police forces during 1999/00 while in others it fell slightly. This is likely to reflect better recording of such incidents by the police rather than an increase in the number of incidents.

Click here for graph of police recorded racist incidents & British Crime Survey data for 1994/95 to 1999/2000

Source: Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System A Home Office publication under section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991: Report 2000 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/adhocpubs1.html

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/bcs1.html

• Research has indicated that the majority or racist incidents recorded are either damage to property or verbal harassment. Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnership officers must be made aware that racially motivated incidents are more likely to take the form of these less serious types of crime rather than assaults or more serious crimes, and it is these types of incident which they should be equipped to deal with

Maynard, W. and Read, T. (1997) Policing Racially Motivated Incidents, Crime Detection & Prevention Series. Paper 84. Home Office. London. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/policerspubs1.html

Full report
Summary report

• Maynard’s study of 34 police forces in England & Wales provided a general comparison between rates of detection and of charging/cautioning between racial and non-racial incidents. The findings suggested were that racially-motivated incidents are:

  • more likely to be cleared up than non-racially motivated incidents

  • less likely to result in a charge or caution

  • some discrepancies. For e.g. there was a comparatively high detection rate for racially motivated incidents in cases of damage to property and a low detection rate for racially motivated incidents in cases of verbal abuse. With charging rates, detected racially motivated burglaries were the only crime type more likely to result in a charge or caution than non-racial counterparts

Click here for graph: percentages of notifiable offences cleared up and charged /cautioned compared to racially motivated incidents cleared up and charged and sanctioned 1999/2000