United Kingdom

The United Kingdom regularly reports hate crime data to ODIHR.

Authorities collaborate closely with civil society, including through Information Sharing Agreements concluded between the police and the Community Security Trust (CST), Galop and Tell MAMA, which enable the exchange of recorded data about incidents. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) regularly convenes the external consultation group (ECG) on hate crime together with community organizations, victim advocacy groups, academics with relevant expertise and others. ECG members scrutinize CPS policies and practices, and inform about necessary changes and improvements.

In Northern Ireland, the Department of Justice chairs a multi-agency Hate Crime Delivery Group (HCDG) to identify strategic, cross-governmental priorities and develop new approaches to dealing with hate crime. The group meets quarterly and includes representatives of government departments, criminal justice agencies and victim groups. The Department of Justice and Northern Ireland Policing Board jointly fund Policing and Community Safety Partnerships (PCSPs) to engage and consult with the local community, and work with local partners to identify and prioritize local community safety and policing issues and develop initiatives and projects to address these.

In Scotland, there is the Hate Crime Strategic Partnership Group (SPG), which brings together criminal justice agencies and civil society organizations with hate crime expertise. The SPG helped ensure a multi-agency strategic approach was taken to the develop the Hate Crime Strategy for Scotland. The Hate Crime and Public Order Act (Scotland) Act 2021 became an Act of Parliament on 23 April 2021. The Act was commenced on 1 April 2024.

The UK's College of Policing has developed guidelines for police on responding to hate crime, and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has issued relevant guidance for prosecutors and published public policy statements on particular hate crime strands.

Police and prosecution data, which cover the reporting period from April to March of the following year, are regularly published by the relevant criminal justice agencies of England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

SELECT YEAR

Download the 2013 hate crime report for United Kingdom

OFFICIAL DATA REPORTED BY STATES

Year	Hate crimes recorded by police	Prosecuted	Sentenced
2023	148,735	Not available	Not available
2022	147,447	296 (NI)	1,107
2021	158,018	5,984	932
2020	125,848	16,824	9,510
2019	106,672	14,058	9,340
2018	111,076	18,055	10,817
2017	95,552	14,535	11,987
2016	80,763	20,321	Not available
2015	62518	21300	13103
2014	52853	4872	549
2013	47986	19689	12353
2012	47676	19205	10794
2011	50688	19802	12651
2010	53946	19342	11405
2009	58692	13030	10690

About 2013 Data

Police data include recorded hate crimes in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, but do not include figures for Scotland. The number of cases prosecuted is as follows: 14074 for England and Wales, 566 in Northern Ireland and 5049 in Scotland. Data on sentencing do not include Scotland. All data cover period from April 2013 to March 2014.

Download official data

National developments

In 2013 The College of Policing in the United Kingdom published a Hate Crime Strategy and Operational Guidance. The documents set out the way the police and partners should deal with hate crime and provides information to victims about the standards of service they should expect to receive when they report crime to the police. The documents are publicly available on the police's True Vision website and it has been downloaded over 5000 times since their launch.

KEY OBSERVATION

ODIHR observes that the United Kingdom has met OSCE commitments on hate crime data collection and reporting. ODIHR further observes that data on certain OSCE-mandated bias motivations have not been reported and that the United Kingdom did not report prosecution data from 2012.

INCIDENTS REPORTED BY CIVIL SOCIETY

Total Incidents
Targeted properties
Type of property attacks

INTERNATIONAL REPORTS

Racist and xenophobic hate crime

In its mission report on the United Kingdom, the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent noted concerns about discrimination in various aspects of policing and the justice system in the country. The Working Group recommended that the legal framework for stop and search be amended to include requirements for reasonable suspicion for all police stops; that statistics anonymously identifying the ethnicity of persons subject to stop and search be collected and publicly reported; and that steps be taken towards increasing the number of people of African descent working in the law-enforcement and justice systems.

Anti-Semitic hate crime

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published findings from a survey on experiences and perceptions of anti-Semitism conducted in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The survey showed that many respondents have been victims of anti-Semitic violence and harassment, and feared becoming hate crime victims in the future. The survey also mapped the extent of unreported anti-Semitic hate crime. FRA recommended that EU Member States consider taking a number of steps to improve the reporting, recording, investigating and prosecuting of hate crimes.