National Hate Crime Awareness Week

The main objective of National Hate Crime Awareness Week #NationalHCAW is to encourage authorities, key partners and communities to work together to tackle hate crime.

Hate crimes and incidents

A hate incident is any incident, which may or may not be a criminal offence, that the victim, or anyone else, thinks is motivated by someone's hostility or prejudice towards them or another person because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender.

If the incident constitutes a criminal offence it is referred to as a hate crime. Hate crimes include verbal abuse, physical assaults, damage to property, a car or a home or posting abusive, offensive messages online, but can be any criminal offence.

Some police forces including Derbyshire Police also record incidents motivated by hostility or prejudice because of a person's gender (misogyny) or because they belong to an alternative subculture (such as Goths or Emos) as hate incidents.

Hate Crime Awareness Week is an opportunity to stand together to tackle hate crime.

You can check out the Stop Hate UK site and also visit the National Hate Crime Awareness Week website for more details or our own Hate Crime pages.