Hate Crimes and Non Crime Hate Incidents – 2019 – October 2024
Date of request: 25 November 2024
Reference: 1419-24
Request
Please provide in spreadsheet format the following data:
- Broken down by month and type of hate offence (e.g. disability, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, sexual orientation, transgender identity, alternative subculture, and any other listed category), every hate crime and non-crime hate incident recorded by your force in the following years: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 (up until 31 October).
- For every recorded offence in the same period, (i) the exact nature of the actions or words used, (ii) where it was carried out (either a location such as school, workplace, street etc, or a specific social media platform/internet website), and (iii) the age of the perpetrator.
- For each recorded offence in the same period, the action taken by police and outcome of the offence (e.g. £50 fine, no further action, et cetera, sent for prosecution, et cetera).
Response
Avon and Somerset Police holds information on the subject you have requested.
Aspects of this information have been provided, as explained below. However, we will not be able to answer your request in full without exceeding the appropriate limit. This is because the information requested in question 2 (i) and (ii) is not centrally recorded and would involve an extensive search of our files to find and collate.
To identify the exact nature of the actions or words used, or the location by type such as ‘school’, it would be necessary to manually review every hate crime and incident recorded in the specified timeframe. With more than 28,000 occurrences recorded between 2019 and 31 October 2024, we estimate this would take far more than 18 hours to complete.
Section 12 of the Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for police authorities is set at £450 or 18 staff hours. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2.5 working days in determining whether the department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting it.
This letter represents a Refusal Notice under the Act.
To assist further, we have provided information within a number of .csv files to answer the aspects of your request that we are able to:
|
Question
|
Document | Description |
| 1 | 1 – Summary – All Hate Crimes and Incidents 2019 – October 2024 | This shows a summary of all hate motivated crimes and incidents, broken down by month and by hate type, for the requested timeframe of January 2019 to October 2024. |
| 1 | 2 – Crime and Non-Crime Breakdown 2019 – October 2024 | This shows a breakdown of the occurrences from document 1 by crime and non-crime status. |
| 1 | 3 – Hate Crimes by Hate Type – 2019 – October 2024 | This shows hate crimes only, with a breakdown by the categories of hate type we record. |
| 1 | 4 – Non-Crime Hate Incidents by Hate Type, 2019 – October 2024 | This shows non-crime hate incidents only, with a breakdown by the categories of hate type we record. |
| 3 | 5 – Hate Crime Outcomes, 2019 – October 2024 | This shows hate crimes only, with a breakdown by recorded outcome. |
| 3 | 6 – Non-Crime Hate Incident Outcomes, 2019 – October 2024 | This shows non-crime hate incidents only, with a breakdown by recorded outcome. |
| 3 | 7 – Combined Outcomes – Hate Crimes and Incidents, 2019 – October 2024 | This shows all hate crimes and non-crime hate incidents, with a breakdown by recorded outcome. |
| 2(iii)
|
8 – Suspect Age – All Hate Crimes and Incidents, 2019 – October 2024 | This shows a breakdown of suspects by age range, for all hate crime and non-crime hate incidents. |