You asked
Could you please let me know to whom hate crime is reported; how the hate crime is detailed; who decides what is and what is not a hate crime and who compiles the statistics? I also wish to submit a FoI request to ascertain whether the vast number of attacks on UKIP members and supporters is included in the statistics and if any reports are filtered out.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
There are two sources of official statistics on hate crime; the first based on crimes recorded by the police and the second from an independent survey of the general population called the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW).
Hate crime is defined as ‘any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic'. This common definition was agreed in 2007 by the police, Crown Prosecution Service, Prison Service (now the National Offender Management Service) and other agencies that make up the criminal justice system. However, there are only five centrally monitored strands of hate crime: race or ethnicity; religion or religious beliefs; sexual orientation; disability; and gender identity.
The police should record crimes as hate crimes if the victim mentions that the offender was motivated by one of the five strands mentioned above. Those hate crimes recorded by the 44 police forces of England and Wales are then supplied to the Home Office who compile the resulting statistics.
Like the police series, the CSEW asks victims of crime for their perception of whether or not the incident was motivated by the offender's attitude towards the victim's race; religion; sexual orientation; disability and gender identity. The survey is managed by ONS with data collection contracted to an external survey research agency, currently TNS. ONS collate the results from the survey and supply summary data to the Home Office for publication alongside the police series.
The Home Office produce an annual publication titled 'Hate Crime, England and Wales' which collates both sources of statistics. The 2014 to 2015 release was published on the 13th October 2015, and can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2014-to-2015
With regard to your specific question about attacks against UKIP (or any other political party's) members and supporters, recording would depend on the circumstances of the report. For example, if the victim told the police they perceived the attack to have been motivated by one of the five strands mentioned above then it should be recorded as a hate crime. However, if the attack was for example perceived to be politically motivated the crime would not currently be classified as a hate crime for the purposes of reporting to the Home Office.