Agenda item

Luisa Jepson introduced her role as a Hate Crimes Support Officer based at the Hate Crimes Unit in Fish Street.

Luisa outlined a lot of changes which have taken place over several months.

The Police were faced with the need to make a lot of cuts. The Hate Crimes Unit was reviewed as part of making efficiency savings and was left much as it had been – only the management of it changed slightly.

The new Sergeant is Pauline Sturman, who used to be responsible for dealing with hate crime in the northern part of Northamptonshire.

The Hate Crimes Unit is now a countywide unit. This improves things for victims and other people who want to report incidents as they can be sure of a consistent approach right across Northamptonshire now.

In Northampton the officers used to deal with most of the reported hate crimes directly and just within the Hate Crimes Unit. In the northern area it was dealt with as an integral part of the work of all Police officers in the local areas.

Statistics show that most hate crime in Northamptonshire happens in Northampton.

Luisa is a Victim Support Officer. She and other officers in the Hate Crimes Unit monitor every reported hate incident and crime. If the report involves a vulnerable person or a complicated situation it is pulled into the Hate Crimes Unit. If not, it now tends to stay with the local Police team – now with support from the Hate Crimes Unit who work with them and CID.

Statistics show that there has been a steady increase in victim satisfaction with how their case is handled. The figure is now 90% being satisfied.

The number of incidents of hate crime reported has gone down locally, as it has nationally.

The new focus of the Hate Crimes Unit officers like Luisa is to go to community groups, faith places and work with organisations and local services to raise awareness of hate crime and that it is important to report it.

Some leaflets have been produced for partnership work.

Action: ALL anyone who would like Luisa or one of her colleagues from the Police Hate Crimes Unit to visit them should contact them via the main Northamptonshire Police tel: 03000 111 222 or email: luisa.Jepson@northants.police.uk

Northants Police have signed up to the True Vision website. This site has information about hate crime and helps people to report it – with reporting packs that can be downloaded in different languages and online reporting forms too.

People can also report incidents online on the Northamptonshire Police website.

The Hate Crimes Unit wants to see reported incident numbers increase. Evidence of under-reporting, and that it can be addressed, has come from work done with the Learning Disability Partnership Board – through this work hate crime reporting has increased.

Anjona said that about two years ago NREC had co-ordinated collation of all hate crime reports across the county. That funding had been withdrawn. Now, individual organisations were encouraging people to report incidents directly to them. If the matter is a crime it would still be reported to the Police, but incidents might not be reflected in figures the Police had if they were not shared by organisations.

NREC now get involved when victims are not satisfied with the service they get when they report a hate crime. For example, where they feel the Police have failed to identify a matter has a hate element and the victim wishes to complain about this. Currently it was dealing with a couple of cases of this sort concerning a housing service and the Police.

Anjona said NREC understood the reduction of reported hate crime to the Police is 30%. At the same time, she said, some organisations had been increasing their own individual reporting rates significantly.

NREC has some resources available if people want to promote hate crime reporting in their own organisation e.g. a pop-up poster version of a partnership image used in some leaflets, e.g. some photographs of people with signs saying that they have reported a hate crime.

Hate crime is where an incident is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hate. Most reports to the Police are neighbour issues, often linked to anti-social behaviour, some to do with drunken people in town. Whether they are picked up and identified as hate crime, depends to some extent on the perception of Police officers.

Morcea said that cyberbullying is growing and hard to monitor. She highlighted work being done by Northampton Youth Forum, the youth council for Northampton, involving young people from several schools and youth organisations in Northampton and county. Morcea said that parents and others need to raise their awareness of the ways young people are being targeted online in chat, online gaming and other situations involving technology. She said she feels that the evidence shows hate-motivated behaviour including cyberbullying is happening across school communities, not because someone is black or Asian, just because they are different.

Sharon referred to the work of a Northamptonshire County Council officer who’s job is to raise awareness of cybersafety and cybercrime, working with schools in the county. It was noted that as increasing numbers of schools cease to be under the direct control of the County Council e.g. because they become academies, it may become harder for the County Council to reach into the school communities. Similarly, the decline in youth services outside of school, may also make it harder to reach into communities outside of school time. There was a need to reach everyone.

Thomas said that he felt there was a role for this Forum to identify particular groups and understand the reasons for under-reporting of hate crime. The diversity of people involved in the Forums’ networks for Northampton via social media, email and so on, who could be asked about their views, could help to find out – rather than just trying to work it out in this single meeting.

Anjona Roy suggested that only a few people know the Home Office definition of hate crime and that this was a barrier. She said she felt most people don’t know it’s a crime and that they have rights not to experience bad treatment from other people. She felt that schools should be noting not only incidents happening at school, but also when a child cannot do their homework due to suffering hate crime outside of school. She felt that staff in the Council’s One Stop Shop should be on the look out for incidents that might be hate crime and tell people if they feel that they have been the victim of a hate crime. Anjona said it was not enough just to put the onus on victims to report incidents. Anjona referred to the fact that all public organisations have a legal equalities duty to have due regard and so need to do more on hate crime.

Louisa mentioned that she had come across people who thought that what is reported at school or to other organisations is automatically passed on to Northants Police. But they do not receive that information. This may go towards explaining why the reporting figures are going down – incidents may be happening but the figures are not shared to enable a consistent picture to be built and reviewed.

Some members of the Forum said that they had concerns about schools and housing services not dealing with hate incidents.

Cllr Patel said some people in the community are not confident about working with the Police. He has found that now that he is an elected councillor and that there are more councillors from ethnic minority groups too, it is helping people to feel that they can speak to the council and Police.

Zahira said that had suffered a lot. This included being called “muslim – murderer” on the doorstep of a shop. Her 12 year old daughter has been wearing a hijab and been spat at in the street – which Zahira felt sure was because of the hijab. Zahira wanted to see work happening that created a link between schools, the Councils and the Police.

It was noted that there had previously been an “Equality Monitoring Group” but this had been scrapped.

Morcea said in her view almost every incident reported at school should be sent through to the Police. She feared people were scared of saying they were sure incidents happened e.g. because someone was gay. She felt people needed to feel safer to report hate crime.

Sharon referred to the fact the County Council does link with the Police but it receives hardly any reports from the schools now – about 3 in the past 6 months. Reports of hate crime do go straight to the Police.

Anjona said she was concerned that when the Police are aware NREC is involved in a case, then they are happy to meet to discuss that hate crime with NREC, but not otherwise.

It was noted that Northampton Borough Council is doing some work looking at hate crime through its Overview and Scrutiny group.

Action: Request for Overview and Scrutiny to attend this Forum to talk about their work on hate crime

Sean said that Adrian Lee spoke at NREC and presented a high level of victim satisfaction as evidence of providing a good service – but that it was a concern to Sean that the need to get people reporting incidents in the first place is overlooked.

The Forum members discussed that there is no research on what is an acceptable level of reporting. There was a need to have ongoing training and development opportunities for housing officers, council officers, people working in schools etc so that they recognise hate crime and know what to do to report it and help the victims.

It was noted that Northampton Youth Forum had recently begun a Stamp out Hate Crime campaign. This followed surveying young people and others which found that over 90% felt bullying and homophobia were major issues which people wanted the youth forum to address. The campaign was bringing together people working in councils, schools, the Police Hate Crimes Unit, youth groups and individuals. The campaign aimed to raise awareness of what hate crime is, that it includes bullying and cyberbullying, to reduce stigma about reporting incidents, to make it easier for people to find out how to report and get other help, to make it easier for people to do activities that help prevent hate crime and bullying in the first place. The campaign supported and worked with existing services. The initial response had been very good. The youth want people of all ages to show support – by joining their Facebook page, or doing activities online or in groups, or sharing personal experiences to be included in an exhibition they are making about hate crime. Introductory information is available at: www.northampton.gov.uk/stampouthatecrime and the Facebook page is www.facebook.com/stampouthatecrime

Action: Update on Northampton Youth Forum’s campaign to be given to the next meeting of this Forum