This year, for the first time, the average number of reported hate crimes went down overall – despite an increase in reported transphobic hate crimes, which went up by 11 per cent.
Some people will use these latest numbers to say hate crime levels are declining, but we believe they represent a distrust of the police and the criminal justice system.
Galop has been providing support to LGBTQIA+ victims of hate crimes since the early 1980s and, 40 years on, our national hate crime support services are hearing from thousands of LGBTQIA+ victims of hate crime every year. From what we see in our services, hate crime against our community has not gone down – in fact, demand on our National LGBTQIA+ Hate Crime Helpline has increased by 65 per cent in a single year.
What this means is that the Home Office data is not representing the reality of anti-LGBTQIA+ hate crime. In reality, no one knows how wrong the data is. But it is inarguably wrong.
The problem is, the conversation around hate crime in this country relies so heavily on these numbers that the entire focus becomes about whether or not victims are reporting the abuse that happens to them. This places a heavy burden on victims to come forward to improve the data. There is no discussion about what happens next – about the support a victim might need to return to their daily life, how to feel safe again, what practical assistance they might need with housing, or healthcare, or the criminal justice system – and nothing about how they recover psychologically from being targeted because of who they are.