The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has confirmed that more hate crimes, including homophobic and transphobic crimes, have been prosecuted than before.
The CPS is reporting that it is prosecuting more hate crimes than ever before, including homophobic and transphobic crimes.
Year on year the CPS’s success in bringing more prosecutions has risen 4.8 per cent (15,442) from 2014/15 which was a rise against 4.7 per cent the year before 2013/14.
Overall the conviction rate was high for homophobic crimes was 83 per cent of prosecutions resulting in a conviction for the perpetrator of the crimes. This was a rise from 81.3 per cent in the previous year.
Solicitor General Robert Buckland said,
“Tackling hate crime has always been a priority for the Government. We have worked extensively to improve our collective response to this issue and in particular to improve recording of hate crime, so that we now have a fuller picture of the scale of the problem.”
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There were 1439 homophobic and transphobic cases prosecuted by the CPS in the UK 2015/16.
Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions said,
“My message is that a hate crime is exactly that – a crime – and will not be ignored. Hate crime creates fear and has a devastating impact on individuals and communities. Nobody should have to go about their day to day life in fear of being attacked.
“This report shows that more of these incidents are being recognised as hate crimes, so they are reported, investigated and prosecuted as such. It is important that this trend continues and no one should simply think that this abuse – on or offline – will be dismissed or ignored.
“More than four in five prosecuted hate crimes result in a conviction, which is good news for victims. Over 73 per cent are guilty pleas – this means that more defendants are pleading guilty due to the strength of the evidence and prosecution case, so victims do not have to go through the process of a trial.
“The CPS has undertaken considerable steps to improve our prosecution of hate crime and we will continue this improvement.”
