Councillors call for new race equality council urgently to tackle rising hate crime in Newcastle
It comes after figures showed a nearly 20% rise in the number of crimes reported last year
Councillors in Newcatle are calling for the entire North East to come together to tackle rising levels of hate crime.
It's ahead of Hate Crime Awareness Week getting underway tomorrow - recent figures show levels have risen nearly 20% in Newcastle.
The majority of the nearly one-thousand incidents reported to police were racially motivated.
Dipu Ahad is councillor for Elswick - he says he's been waiting for help to crackdown on hate crime for a long time:
"No I'm not optimistic - I've been saying this for many years, I've been to many conferences throughout the Europe and all the conferences and all the experts are saying the same thing - there's a rise in hate crime throughout Europe.
"I've been saying for a long time we need to look into this."
Monument ward and the city centre in general remain the area with the highest rates of hate crime, followed by the West End.
The biggest spike in hate crimes in Newcastle happened before and after the EU referendum in 2016, but it has continued to rise at a slower rate since then.
The report has also warned that action must be taken to overhaul the city’s third-party hate crime reporting system, abandoning the outdated ARCH service run through Your Home Newcastle.
Nearly half of all respondents to a council survey said that the existing process was “either bad or very bad” and that a more efficient system is needed to provide specialist support to victims.
A Newcastle City Council spokesperson said:
“Tackling hate crime is a key issue for us and Race Equality Councils certainly are one way of bringing together different organisations to focus on it. We look at all options available but the work taking place under the Safer Newcastle Partnership already does much of what a REC would do.
“Safe Newcastle works closely with a number of partners through the Hate Crime and Community Tensions Monitoring Group (HCCTMG) to monitor and tackle hate crime in Newcastle. The HCCTMG has undertaken a number of initiatives, including the recently completed Hate Crime Review and a number of community events promoting unity and integration. Since 2017, Safe Newcastle has supported eleven voluntary sector organisations in applying for funding to tackle hate crime and extremism as well as strengthen community cohesion through a range of community based projects.
“Tackling hate crime is a priority and we will continue to work with our partners and local communities to increase hate crime awareness, increase reporting and strengthen access to support for the victims of hate crime. We will be also implementing a new third-party reporting system to replace our current system, ARCH, in the near future. If you are concerned about hate crime or would like to report it, please call ARCH on 0800 032 3288."