Increasing hate crime reporting: narrowing the gap between policy aspiration, victim inclination and agency capability

This paper aims to answer the question: can the aspiration for increasing hate crime reporting contained in the United Kingdom Government's action plan on hate crime (2016-2020) be achieved by local agencies in England and Wales? Drawing on findings from research into the barriers to hate crime reporting and research undertaken by the authors and colleagues in 2012 to 2013 in a county in England, this paper will examine the impact of victim decision making and the efficacy of third party hate crime reporting centres on hate crime reporting. It will propose two solutions to facilitate increased reporting in the UK and other jurisdictions: an end to end, criminal justice system, hate crime service framework to more effectively support victims; and a typology of reporting provision which will better enable commissioning agencies to assess the capability and capacity of hate crime services.