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Hate crime inquiry deadline extended

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All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hate Crime, appg, inquiry, hate crime, deadline extended, Please consider submitting a sentence or two, a paragraph or two or an essay.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hate Crime launched an inquiry entitled ‘How do we build community cohesion when hate crime is on the rise?’ in March this year.

The inquiry aims to gather evidence of how hate speech and hate crime impact on communities, and to provide detailed recommendations on how community cohesion can be strengthened in the face of rising hate crime and hate speech.

It explicitly focuses on all strands of hate crime and speech  related to someone’s race, sexual orientation, religious, disability, or if they are transgender, and is particularly keen on teasing out common themes, as well as potential divergences between the various hate crime strands.

It is still inviting submissions of written evidence on this topic and will be holding open sessions for further information in due course. The findings will be published in a public report at the end of this year.

And it is inviting submissions considering the following questions:

The Status Quo – What is the situation today?

What is the extent of hate crime and speech that is experienced by individuals or communities and what form does it take?

How does experiencing hate crime and hate speech impact on individuals, communities and their values?

How does online hate speech and hate crime impact on community cohesion? Is there a link?

How does hate crime and hate speech contribute to extremism, including intra-community sectarianism?

How does hate speech and bullying impact children and young people in schools and educational institutions?

How does hate speech impact on the emotional and mental health of individuals who are targeted at a street and online level?

Recommendations – What can we do to build community cohesion?

Best practice: What schemes, initiatives and projects exist to build community cohesion in the face of rising hate crime and hate speech?

What can national and local government do to increase community cohesion in the face of rising hate crime and hate speech?

What role do police forces play in increasing community cohesion in the face of rising hate crime and hate speech? Are there practical examples of their work, say after major terrorist attacks when cohesion may be affected?

What role can community organisations, charities and others play to increase community cohesion in the face of rising hate crime and hate speech?

Are there projects that help individuals to support their emotional, mental health and practical needs when they are targeted online and offline?

The most important aspect which guides much of the understanding around hate crime work is victim perception.

It is also important to be able to distinguish between a hate incident and a hate crime.

The Metropolitan Police describe a hate incident as:

“A Hate Incident is any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someone’s prejudice towards them because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender.

“Not all hate incidents will amount to criminal offences, but it is equally important that these are reported and recorded by the police.

“Evidence of the hate element is not a requirement. You do not need to personally perceive the incident to be hate related. It would be enough if another person, a witness or even a police officer thought that the incident was hate related”.

A hate crime is described as:

“Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person’s race or perceived race; religion or perceived religion; sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation; disability or perceived disability and any crime motivated by hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender.”

Hate crime can fall into one of three main types: physical assault, verbal abuse and incitement to hatred.

Physical assault of any kind is an offence. If you’ve been a victim of physical assault you should report it. Depending on the level of the violence used, a perpetrator may be charged with common assault, actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm.

Verbal abuse, threats or name-calling can be a common and extremely unpleasant experience for minority groups.

Victims of verbal abuse are often unclear whether an offence has been committed or believe there is little they can do. However, there are laws in place to protect you from verbal abuse.

If you’ve been the victim of verbal abuse, talk to the police or one of their partner organisations about what has happened. You’ll find a list of them on this How to report hate crime page.

Even if you don’t know who verbally abused you, the information could still help the police to improve how they police the area where the abuse took place.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) is interested to hear from experts, practitioners, victims and their representative organisations, as well as academics and others with an interest in and knowledge of the topic.

Submissions should be no more than 2,500 words in length, clearly state who they are from and whether they are sent in a personal capacity or sent on behalf of an organisation, and include a brief description of the submitting individual/organisation and need to be emailed to info@appghatecrime.org

The deadline for submissions has been extended to 15 August 2018.

Based on the evidence received, individuals and organisations will be invited to give further evidence during an open meeting of the APPG.

Please consider submitting a sentence or two, a paragraph or two or an essay to this APPG on hate crime. They appear to think women do not experience any.

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