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It would be “a disaster for disabled people” if police stop recording and investigating lower-level incidents of abuse that often lead to more serious hate crimes, according to researchers and campaigners.
As part of wide-ranging changes to policing, the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, confirmed this week that the category of non-crime hate incidents would be scrapped in its current form in England and Wales.
Non-crime hate incidents are those perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards people because of certain characteristics, such as race or religion, but that do not meet the threshold of a criminal offence.
Last year, police chiefs declared the category not fit for purpose after a series of high-profile cases in which outspoken individuals were arrested because of social media posts about race and gender, prompting concerns about freedom of speech.
Mahmood has said she wants officers to focus on “the day job” and stop policing “perfectly legal tweets”.
But disabled campaigners warned that if day-to-day instances of lower-level abuse were not recorded then police and other agencies would lose vital intelligence.
“Stopping the recording of non-crime hate incidents would be a disaster for disabled people,” said Prof Stephen Macdonald, a professor of criminology and disability studies at Durham University. “Hate crime is the tip of the iceberg, but repeat hate incidents are the hidden day-to-day reality for many disabled people,” he said.
Macdonald has extensively researched disability hate crime, “whether that’s neighbours banging on doors, blocking access routes, engaging in aggressive behaviour, or even throwing dog faeces at a person’s property”.
“It may not meet the threshold for a serious crime but it’s the kind of behaviour that can often escalate into stalking and harassment, incitement of violence, or serious assaults.”
Macdonald said that hate crime against disabled people was overlooked in government data and academic research, with the law itself developed around stranger assaults such as the racist attack that killed Stephen Lawrence rather than the incremental abuse from neighbours, carers or local young people, which is often more commonly experienced by disabled people.
“In my research I’ve come across instances where whole families have been targeted by ongoing abuse and forced to move house to escape it.”
“It’s really important to record these lower level incidents because they add up,” said Mark Brookes, campaigns adviser at Dimensions, the UK’s largest specialist support provider for adults with learning disabilities and autistic people.
Brookes, who has a learning disability, describes an incident a few years ago in which he was followed by a driver as he walked home from the station one evening.
“I heard a car revving behind me. There was laughing and giggling, then shouting ‘mong’ and ‘spastic’ and they threw something at me. I quickly ran away and it was only when I got home I saw it was an egg.”
This level of abuse was very familiar to the people he worked with, said Brookes, who has trained more than 3,000 police officers in how to give people with learning disabilities more confidence to report hate crimes. He describes another man with a learning disability who was subject to a campaign of name-calling and intimidation after neighbours got angry at his support worker taking up a parking space outside his supporting living accommodation.
Louise Holden, senior policy officer for Inclusion London, said: “Only 1 in 10 hate crimes against disabled people are thought to be reported … and there are low rates of investigation and conviction, meaning disabled victims rarely see justice.
“We know that recording and investigating non-hate crime incidents is a vital evidence base for proving patterns of abuse and securing a conviction. At a time when disabled people’s confidence in police handling of reports is low, we mustn’t take away vital evidence, but instead should strengthen the law”. Inclusion London supports the Law Commission’s recommendation to make disability hate crime an aggravated offence, alongside other protected characteristics.
Responding to the home secretary’s proposals, Police Scotland said they would continue to record non-crime hate incidents which “can be used for monitoring of community tensions and forward planning”.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Disability hate crimes are completely unacceptable, and we are committed to tackling these appalling crimes.
“We asked the College of Policing and the NPCC to look into non-crime hate incidents and will consider their report due in a few weeks.”
