Rise in hate crime reported across South Yorkshire
The local police force says its likely because people feel more confident about talking to officers about abuse
Hate crimes reported to South Yorkshire Police rose 15% in the last financial year.
The force recorded 3,368 hate crimes and hate incidents – an incident motivated by hatred of a group but where the incident falls short of being a criminal offence – during the financial year 2020/21.
Police bosses believe that the increase is due to improved levels of reporting hate crimes, according to a report to Dr Alan Billings, South Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner.
The report states:
“The force regards this increase in reports as being good news as given the backdrop of falling rates of hate crime, the increase is likely to represent an increase in a belief that it is worthwhile to report these matters to the police.”
The report adds that hate crimes are “fully investigated” by neighbourhood teams, who can “devote sufficient resources to investigating the offence and supporting the victim”.
71% of reported hate crimes were based on race, 14 per cent sexual orientation, 12 per cent disability, two percent transgender and one percent religion.
“Clearly, the force would like to eliminate this completely and continues to work towards this,” the report adds.