Hate Crime (627A/23)
Request
The following questions are intended to examine the impact of the recent Law Commission report on Hate Crime, published 2021, on the way police forces record and report on crime.
As you will be aware, crimes aggravated by hostility based on sex are not currently treated as hate crimes under the criminal law.
Some police forces have, however, trialled recording crimes aggravated by hostility towards sex and gender, and in particular misogynistic crime. The Law Commission report, however, argued that sex and gender should not be added as protected characteristics for the purposes of aggravated offences and enhanced sentencing.
As such, please could you answer the following:
- Do you keep a record of crimes aggravated by hostility towards sex or gender that are reported to (or discovered by) your force?
- Please note the reference to gender concerns cisgender identity, as crimes aggravated by hostility towards transgender identity are already captured under s.66(1) Sentencing Act 2020. References to gender in the below questions should also be read as references to cisgender identity.
- If not:
- a) Have you ever done?
- b) Are there plans to do so in future?
- Has the Law Commission’s 2021 report affected whether you collect this information? If so, how?
- If Yes to question 1, please state:
- a) The number of crimes and incidents that were logged on your system as aggravated by hostility towards sex or gender in 2020, 2021 and 2022 (please give two separate figures for each year- crimes and incidents)
- b) For those recorded as crimes, please give the nature of these offences (broken down by year and into crime categories, as defined by your force)
- c) Please also give the number of crimes logged that led to a:
(i) Caution
(ii) Criminal prosecution
(iii) Conviction
(Please give separate figures for each year)
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
Although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded (see attached). I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of the request.
REASON FOR DECISION
Please note that researching each individual case would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
In relation to question 4, we don’t currently have a way to identify crimes based on hostility to sex/gender, we would need to conduct a manual review of all relevant records in order to locate and retrieve this information, this search would exceed the FOI time limit.
The cost of compliance with the whole of your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12(1) of the FOI Act 2000. For West Midlands Police, the appropriate limit is set at £450, as prescribed by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, S.I. 3244.