More than 100,000 racist hate crimes were recorded in England and Wales for the first time last year, statistics show.
Offences against all minority groups rose by more than a quarter, the largest annual rise since 2017. Police forces recorded 155,841 hate crimes in the year ending March 2022 – up 26% from the previous 12 months.
Hate crimes targeting transgender people saw the largest proportional rise. There were 4,355 anti-trans incidents in 2021/22 – up by 56% from 2020/21.
The Home Office report said: “Transgender issues have been heavily discussed on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in related hate crimes.”
Disability hate crimes rose by 43%, sexual-orientation related hate crimes rose by 41%, religious hate crimes were up 37%, while racist crimes increased by 19%.
The Home Office said that it was unclear how much the rise in hate crime was due to genuine increases in crime or to continuing improvements in police recording processes and practices.
It also said that growing awareness of hate crime is likely to have led to better identification of such offences, as well as more victims having the confidence to come forward.
Such a large rise last year was also due partly to lower that usual levels of crime in 2020/21 because of the public health restrictions in place during the pandemic, it added.
Some events have preceded large rises in hate crime. The number of racial or religiously aggravated offences recorded by police rose in July 2016after the EU referendum, in July 2017after a string of terrorist attacks, and in summer 2020 after Black Lives Matter protests and far-right counter-protests in response to the murder of George Floyd.
The majority of hate crimes (51%) were public order offences. About 22% were stalking and harassment offences, 13% were violence against the person without injury, and 6% were violence with injury.
Muslims were the most targeted religious group. Police recorded 3,459 anti-Muslim offences, making up more than two in five anti-religious hate crimes. There were 1,919 antisemitic hate crimes (about 23% of all anti-religious offences), and 701 anti-Christian crimes.
Only 8% of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales ended in a charge or summons in 2021/22 – down from 12% in the previous year.
The most common outcome for violent hate crime offences was “evidential difficulties as the victim does not support action”.
The Home Office report said there was evidence that a higher proportion of crime reports were for “offence types which can be more challenging to investigate.”
“This means that the investigative caseload has both grown and become more complex,” it said.
The LGBT+ anti-abuse charity Galop said that demand for its hate crime support services had increased. In a statement, it said: “Today’s official hate crime figures reflect the experience of our community in 2022.
“Some will try to say this increase is just showing that the LGBT+ community’s trust in the police is improving – that this is not an increase in incidents, but in people coming forward.
“We strongly do not believe that to be the case. Demand for our hate crime support services, including the national LGBT+ hate crime helpline, has grown by 19% in just the last six months.”
