Over 1,000 racially motivated crimes reported to Hertfordshire Police last year

Reports of racially motivated crimes to Hertfordshire Police increased by 83 per cent between 2011/12 and 2019/20.

Since 2011/12 there have been 8, offences with race as a motivating factor reported to the force, rising from 667 to 1,222 in 2019/20.

Parts of the UK have seen an alarming rise in racially motivated crimes, official figures reveal.

Against a backdrop of global protests led by the Black Lives Matter movement, new analysis by the JPIMedia Data Unit shows police forces across the UK are regularly dealing with racist hate crimes.

The latest Home Office figures reveal over 76,000 racist offences were committed across England and Wales in 2019/20 – the equivalent of 208 every day – with all of England and Wales’ 44 police forces seeing a rise since 2011/12.

In Hertfordshire, there were three racist offences reported each day in 2019/20.

The Home Office said improvements in police recording is one of the main reasons for the increase.

But independent race equality think tank the Runnymede Trust said there is an “overwhelming existence of systemic racism present in British society”.

The UK Government said it is working with various community groups, charities and schools to tackle racially and religiously motivated hate crime.

Adam Almeida, research analyst at the Runnymede Trust, said the figures do not show the full picture as some people who experience racist abuse do not report it.

“What is occurring in Britain today mirrors what is happening globally, where incidences of racist crime correlate with the rise of the far-right, nationalism and white supremacy,” Mr Almeida said.

“We need to work to address the systemic root causes of racism that precipitates racist abuse at the individual level.”

Hertfordshire Constabulary’s hate crime lead, Detective Chief Inspector Pete Frost said: “We believe that many hate crimes go unreported and we want to increase the number of people reporting offences.

“This will mean we can do something about it, we can better understand the scale of the problem, and victims can receive support from hate crime officers.

“Hate crimes and incidents can have a severe impact on the victim and on the wider community in which they occur and will not be tolerated in Hertfordshire. Any reported to police will be taken seriously and dealt with sensitively.”

You can report hate crime online at herts.police.uk/report or online through the True Vision website - report-it.org.uk.

Speak to an operator in by calling 101, in an emergency dial 999.

For more information about where to report hate crime visit hertsagainsthate.org.

Baroness Williams, Minister for Countering Extremism, added that all forms of hate crime are “completely unacceptable”.

“The Government takes this issue very seriously which is why we published the hate crime action plan which has helped improve the police response to, and public awareness of, all forms of hate crime,” she said.

“We are working with community groups, charities and schools funding projects to tackle racially and religiously motivated hatred and we have also provided £3.2 million in funding to improve security at places of worship at risk from hate crime attacks for 2020/21.”