APPENDIX 17
Memorandum submitted by the Community
Foundation for Northern Ireland
1.1 A SHORT SUMMARY
OF THE
CFNI CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS
CHANGING ATTITUDES,
PROMOTING PEACE
AND SOCIAL
INCLUSION IN
NORTHERN IRELAND
1.1 Since its foundation, CFNI has worked
to build and strengthen local communities using a community development
approach to promote social inclusion, participation and good relations.
While its key function is to act as a grant-maker across a number
of programmes, it also works to raise awareness of key issues
affecting communities, to build trust and promote social inclusion,
influence policy and, where necessary, implement targeted demonstration
programmes to support policy development.
1.2 CFNI has also organised a number of
conferences and seminars and published several reports relating
to issues of Peace-building, Taking risks for Peace, Social Justice,
Victims and Survivors, work with politically motivated ex-prisoner
groups, work with Ethnic Minority groups and groups that are vulnerable
in our society—specifically it has supported groups supporting
those with disabilities and those providing support services to
the gay and lesbian community.
1.3 CFNI has funded many projects and programmes
targeted at building stable communities and promoting a shared
future throughout its 25 years. More particularly in the past
10 years, through its role as an Intermediary Funding Body for
the Peace Programmes and through its increased work on issues
relating to social justice and inclusion, it has developed pro-active
projects in areas where community tensions and divisions have
been barriers to progress as well as doing innovative work with
marginalised groups of young people.
1.4 It has funded both single identity and
cross community work/projects and has dealt with inter-face and
intra-community tensions on an ongoing basis. Additionally, over
the past eight years, it has worked over the difficult summer
period to provide crisis funding and interventions where they
were needed. Much of this support has been targeted at sectarian
interfaces or at sectarian divisions and problems but an increasing
concern has been to provide support for work with ethnic minority
groups, travellers, health and disability issues, lone parents
and work with women, work with disaffected young people.
2. HATE CRIME—IS
IT INCREASING?
CFNI shares the views of other partners in NI
that the proposed legislation should include hate crimes relating
to race, sectarianism, homophobia and disability.
2.1 Issues relating to the recording of Hate
Crime
The question is asked if there is an increase
in hate crime as opposed to an increase of reporting of hate crime.
2.2 It is probable that there is an increase
in hate crime across the board—race, sectarian, homophobia
and disability—in recent years as communities have become
increasingly polarised and defensive but this is difficult to
quantify due to inconsistent data collection across Northern Ireland.
Certainly, there has been much publicity about the apparent rise
in race and homophobic crime particularly in the Belfast and Derry
areas. Reports are also coming in from the district towns and
rural villages across NI. There is a widely held perception that
sectarian crime has also increased significantly since the Good
Friday Agreement, particularly in terms of intimidation, verbal
and physical abuse and damage to property.
2.3 Raising public awareness through the
media is a positive step and will encourage reporting but it remains
difficult to say conclusively whether it is the number of crimes
that has increased or the level of reporting. However, recent
Life and Times survey data shows that the numbers of people believing
that relationships between the Protestant and Catholic communities
are better now than five years ago has fallen from almost 60%
in 1995 to less than 30% on 2001.
2.4 In 2000-01, CFNI attempted to collect
data on this issue from the NIO and from police divisions across
NI but found an analysis impossible to put together as each division
was collecting data in different ways. It is fair to say that
it appeared in most instances that hate crime was regularly being
recorded as either criminal damage or criminal injury. A practical
example of this related to the recording of incidents of sectarian
crime across both communities in Larne in 2001. Public statistics
produced by the PSNI to the media recounted 33 incidents over
a 12 month period. When challenged, a review amended this figure
to 129 incidents and the explanation for the difference related
to the way the police had recorded the reports.
2.5 This difference in reporting appears
to be widespread across NI and relates to both race and sectarian
crime—even though the PSNI introduced the monitoring of
Race Crime as far back as 1997. While it is hoped that some improvements
have been made since then, it is of concern that a member of CFNI
staff was the victim of a racial attack in South Belfast in the
summer of 2003 which was recorded as criminal damage. When investigated,
she was told that unless she actually said that she felt it was
a racial attack, then it would not be recorded as such.
2.6 It also appeared (in the 2000-01 research)
that there was no method of differentiating in the statistics
between incidents of a more public nature—ie: sectarian
attacks at interfaces or incidents/riots in town centres or at
marches and/or in contested spaces as opposed to isolated incidents
in either the urban or rural context. It is difficult, therefore,
to analyse the impact of these crimes on the communities involved.
It is also difficult to know whether reporting was an issue in
itself—in the isolated incident, reporting would be necessary
but in the more public incident, the PSNI would have recorded
the information directly—would the riot be recorded as one
incident even though the impact might be much bigger?
2.7 It is clear that a consistent data recording
process is necessary and an agreed baseline position must be established
in each PSNI Division. Some attention must also be given to the
issue of recording the type of hate crime without the victim having
to make this identification to ensure that it is designated. At
the very least, the victim should have the implications explained
so that they can make the choice.
2.8 Will particular intra-community crimes
be recorded under the legislation—for example, victims of
a feud between paramilitaries from within the same community or
indeed, victims of paramilitary beatings etc?
2.9 The issue of paramilitary involvement
in hate crime must also be fully considered. The PSNI have referenced
this as one of the key issues relating to under-reporting while
fear of giving evidence has led to failure to proceed to prosecution.
New ways to enable people to give evidence safely while not disadvantaging
the defendant must be looked at.
3. GOVERNMENT
MEASURES TO
TACKLE HATE
CRIME
3.1 The Government has introduced legislation
and strategies over the years in an effort to tackle incitement
to hatred, inequality and discrimination. A weakness has been
the lack of commitment to enforcement. It has also developed strategies
to tackle prejudice, sectarianism and racism through the Community
Relations/Good relations strategies and the implementation of
the Section 75 legislation.
3.2 However, due to lack of consistency
of approach across government, the implementation of the Section
75 legislation has been piecemeal. It would take a major commitment
to enable real progress to be made with regular review, based
on some agreed baseline position, also required.
3.3 CFNI shares the concerns of several
community and voluntary sector organisations that government does
not appear to have a coherent approach across a number of key
strategies—eg:
The Good Relations strategy was introduced while
the Shared Future Consultation process was ongoing—the two
issues are linked.
The New TSN consultation was also introduced
with no apparent strategic connection to either of the other two
and all have been introduced in the context of the Review of Public
Administration and the future Support of the Community and Voluntary
Sector Task Force review.
Calls for a more joined-up approach across government
appear to have been ignored as have calls to work in partnership
with the community sector to deliver work on the ground. The impact
of many new measures and funding programmes, delivered by different
departments, has been to continue to duplicate resources in the
two communities, at a huge cost to the exchequer, rather than
challenge division or work with the community and voluntary sectors
to build community cohesion at local level. Many organisations
have become frustrated that years of positive inter-community
work has been ignored while new initiatives and task force strategies
have targeted resources in ways that fuel division and competition
and, in some instances, appear to reward interface violence.
3.4 In a wider context, the issue of public
awareness-raising in relation to hate crime is also critical and
more must be done to enable this to happen. It needs to happen
on a range of levels—
— within the target communities in
an effort to build confidence on reporting and rights;
— within the PSNI (new recruits as
well as serving members- to date, race crime awareness is not
part of the College training);
— in schools and youth services;
— in government departments and agencies;
— with political parties;
— within the Criminal Justice system
(to tackle the issue of why minority groups have such low expectations
of being treated fairly—see NICEM evidence to the NIAC Hose
of Commons—5 May 2004)
— with the media (consideration of
the ROI-KNOW RACISM-campaign and other learning from the UK);
— within local communities through
positive interchange with the network of locally based community
development groups.
3.5 Alongside this, the following strategies
would help:
— a pro-active government strategy
to include representatives from all of the Section 75 groups on
public bodies and advisory committees, the civil service, police
force and other relevant agencies;
— further attitudinal research—like
the Connelly and Keenan—"Racial" attitudes and
prejudice in NI-2000) to enable assessment of what needs to be
done to build relationships and work towards a shared future;
— resourcing of the community and voluntary
support groups who work with the Section 75 groups to enable the
building of confidence and participation—in particular,
victims must have access to support, advice and legal services,
language and communication barriers must be addressed and cultural/religious
issues taken on board;
— consideration should also be given
to enabling support organisations to act on behalf of victims
of hate crime—making the complaint and bringing the charges;
— improving community safety and confidence;
— working to develop shared housing,
services and education—current policies have contributed
to segregation. In acknowledging that people must feel safe in
order to make to make changes to their housing and other needs,
positive policies and incentives towards integration would be
a starting point;
— policing contested spaces in partnership
with communities; and
— working with local community networks
to build trust and develop effective actions.
3.6 In conclusion, Government must also
be prepared to take seriously the issues raised in the Shared
Future Consultation process. This is a critical issue for the
development of a shared and inclusive Northern Ireland and requires
commitment at the highest level. It is a matter of concern to
many groups in the community and voluntary sector that this consultation
was not possible until direct rule was re-established. This begs
the commitment of our Northern Ireland politicians.
3.7 The Peace One and Two funding programmes
enabled a lot of peace-building and social inclusion programmes
to proceed. This has helped to build relationships and create
a much greater level of awareness as to the scale of the problems
we are facing in a post-conflict situation. In contributing to
social cohesion, the programme has also enabled work in areas
of weak community infrastructure and marginalisation to proceed
and has helped to develop a wide range of good practice across
and within communities from which lessons could be learned: eg—
Springfield Inter-community Development Project
Belfast Interface Project
Multi-cultural Resource Centre
NI Travellers Support Group
Mobile Phone Network Project
Crisis Intervention Funds (CFNI)
Communities in Transition Programme (CFNI)
Place Initiative's work with ethnic minority
families in Portadown
Ballymena's Community Voice/Transforming Conflict
Relatives for Justice Quilt project
STEP Initiative's work with Portuguese families—Fermanagh/Tyrone
Many more examples exist.
3.8 CFNI has also had to find additional
independent funding to enable work to be undertaken in areas of
weak community infrastructure where the issues of community tensions
and divisions have been added barriers to progress. This work
could inform Government on future support strategies in our most
vulnerable communities and should be mainstreamed in the coming
years in an effort to reduce alienation and exclusion.
3.9 The lobby for the Peace Programmes funding
to be continued should be supported by government and political
parties at every level.
3.10 Work to introduce the Bill of Rights
should also be supported. Equality should hold no fears for any
section of our community.
3.11 Attention should also be given to the
lessons arising from the work on community cohesion in the North
of England led by the Home Office and based on an inter-cultural
regeneration approach based on trust, respect and tolerance. The
lessons from this work may help to embed the concepts of equity,
diversity and inter-dependence in the NI context.
4. PROPOSED LEGISLATIVE
CHANGE
4.1 CFNI welcomes the consultation on the
proposed legislation. We hope that the future legislation will
be drafted to enable lessons from other jurisdictions to be taken
on board as well as the proposals from the range of informed agencies
operative in NI. The legislation should cover race, sectarian,
homophobic and disability crime and must ensure that it will meet
the needs of those it is designed to protect.
4.2 Essentially, the legislation must be
robust enough to result in convictions as, to date, the record
has been very poor as indeed has the record for taking prosecutions
following reporting. In the year April 2003 to March 2004, out
of a total of 453 reported incidents, only eight prosecutions
went ahead with a further 174 under continuing investigation.
A further 50% were not pursued leading to a lot of frustration
and mistrust. (Belfast Telegraph report, 21 August 2004). A failure
to get convictions will act as an impediment to the reduction
of hate crime. The public must understand the seriousness of the
crime and the perpetrators must expect to be prosecuted and sentenced.
4.3 Currently the DPP does not have to explain
why prosecutions are not pursued. This should be changed in line
with the UK legislation requiring that clear explanations be provided
and should be introduced with the impending changes to those offices
as the PPSNI.
4.4 In relation to sentencing, CFNI supports
the proposal to enable the courts to separate the alleged crime
from the alleged motivation of the crime. This would enable the
finding of fact in relation to the criminal offence itself and
the appropriate sentence applied. The courts would then be in
a position to further investigate the motivation and come to a
conclusion on this as an additional factor in sentencing. The
merging of the two crimes in England has led to problems in securing
convictions.
4.5 The Protection from Harrassment(NI)
Order 1997 should be amended to include a reference to sectarian
harassment.
4.6 The Public Order (NI) 1987 should be
updated to include Section 5 (1) of the English equivalent to
outlaw "threatening verbal abuse and behaviour" and
"threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour within the hearing
or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or
distress thereby."
4.7 Enforcement of the legislation is also
critical. We currently have legislation on the statute book that
is rarely enforced for a range of reasons—lack of understanding,
resources, definitional issues etc. Lack of enforcement can become
a disincentive to reporting.
5. CONCLUSION
5.1 It must be a matter of great concern
to the NIAC and others with responsibilities in NI that recent
research showed that NI had the highest level of hate crime in
the UK. This, in the context of serious under-reporting, suggests
that much greater efforts to tackle the causes and effects are
required. The appropriate legislation will be helpful but equally,
enforcement will be critical. Formal reporting and monitoring
mechanisms must also be implemented. Alongside this is the huge
need for public awareness-raising on the issues and imaginative
use of the learning from other societies should be taken on board.
5.2 It seems astonishing that the reporting
of sectarian crime has not been monitored in any way and this
should be remedied in this proposed legislation. More work also
is required to enable us to understand divisions and the increase
in hate crime as well as enabling us as a society to deal with
the outcomes.
13 September 2004
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