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'Hate crimes' are offences committed against people and property on the grounds of ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, political opinion or disability. Recent years have witnessed an increase in the number of racist, homophobic and sectarian incidents in Northern Ireland. Hate crime against people with disabilities is least well documented, but is likely to be on a scale at least comparable to homophobic incidents. What is alarming, given Northern Ireland's troubled history, is that until recently the Police Service of Northern Ireland had no formal definition of sectarian hate crime.
Our inquiry has identified a lack of firm and effective leadership by the Government, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), and the criminal justice agencies in Northern Ireland to tackle these appalling crimes.
Improvements must be made in a number of areas:
- Urgent action is required by the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) and the Northern Ireland Office whose approach to addressing hate crime has been disjointed, sluggish, and lacking in vision. They must improve their co-ordination of policies to counteract hate crime, publish their hate crime strategies more quickly, and ensure that policy work is carried through into clear improvements in the position of minority groups 'on the ground'.
- The PSNI must improve its clear-up rates for homophobic and racial attacks, translate its revised hate crime policy into practice quickly, and take all the necessary measures to build increasingly effective relationships with the minority communities. The police need to improve general confidence in the reporting system, address reasons for under-reporting, and encourage victims to come forward and report crimes. Police training to deal with racism, homophobia, sectarianism and disability must be improved, and all the necessary steps to secure higher levels of recruitment from minority ethnic communities must be advanced.
- The Department of Education must ensure that its Local and Global Citizenship initiative is followed through vigorously, and is monitored regularly to assess its contribution to the attitudes and behaviour of young people to hate crime. We urge the Government to examine integrated education with renewed urgency, and to ensure that adequate funding is made available for integrated schools.
- We were impressed by the way the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the Department for Social Development are adapting their substantial experience of dealing with sectarian hate crime in housing to other forms of hate crime. These measures must be accelerated and extended, particularly their pilot projects for integrated estates.
- Local district councils must expand their focus on sectarianism to encompass racism, homophobia and crimes against the disabled. This has been largely absent from policies and programmes within district councils. Without this commitment policies introduced centrally will lack local impact.
- Enforcement authorities, particularly the PSNI and the DPP, must use the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2004 vigorously. There should be an early review by the PSNI and the criminal justice agencies of the success of the new measure.
- The racial, homophobic and disabled support and community organisations, churches, and trade unions must continue their existing efforts to provide support and advice within the communities to the victims of hate crime.
- It is most important that the minority communities report each incident to the police. Without such co-operation this criminal activity will go unchecked, inter-community relations will continue to deteriorate, and the unfortunate impression will be given that the problem is less severe than it is. We recognise the difficulties of making such reports, but there is no alternative if this problem is to be confronted. Minority communities must also keep their democratic representatives in local councils and the UK Parliament fully abreast of these matters, and we expect local councillors and Members of Parliament to offer all possible support to these vulnerable communities. The press also has a role to play and should keep these dreadful attacks firmly in the public eye.
These improvements need to be implemented in a co-ordinated way. If action is not taken, and the present disjointed approach continues, hate crime may spiral out of control with extremely serious consequences for the pace of social improvement in Northern Ireland. The Government must co-ordinate action to ensure that these appalling crimes are eradicated from Northern Ireland society.
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