Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Humanities, Psychology and Social Sciences
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Hate crime in the UK: the overlap of the public perception, organisational policies, and police processes as obstacle to hate crime reporting
Moslem Boushehrian
ABSTRACT:
Annual Police-recorded hate crimes are used as a lens through which scholars, professionals, advocacy groups, police and the government reset anti-hate agendas to counter this heinous social phenomenon. However, this study revealed numerous factors affecting the decision-making processes through which a victim or witness may report a hate incident to the police. The interrelationship between office staff, line managers, and the HR is perceived by the public to be a replacement for police procedures which often prevents the reporting of the hate crime in office environments to be reported to the police and therefore missing from the national statistics. Perceived immediate authorise such as line managers, HR, bus drivers, post office managers, etc are seen as hate crime reporting channels in situation where police do not necessary endorse it. The study shows that there is a lack of accurate perception of where and how the office or public space proxy authorities fit within the whole hate crime reporting processes. Furthermore, the study participants and the professional stakeholders’ extended experiences suggested that most victims would consider collecting evidence and assessing the currently held or available evidence for its credibility and admissibility before contacting the police. The public often would not distinguish between their and the police’s role in reporting and investigating hate incidents. They would try to assess the situation, investigate the incident, and consider possible outcomes for the perpetrator and themselves before making a potential report to the police.
keywords: Hate Crime, Police, Crime Reporting, Victims