Government Statistics Show Rise in Racially or Religiously Motivated Hate Crimes

April 8, 2004

Source: INDOlink

http://www.indolink.com/displayArticleS.php?id=040604064211

On April 8, 2004 INDOlink reported, "Figures published April 7 in Britain show that in 2003 racially or religiously motivated crimes against Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus, registered a steep rise in that country. The British government’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) yesterday released figures showing that race crime last year rose by 12 per cent with 2,000 more cases being prosecuted than when the law was introduced in 1999. At the same time, the new offence of religiously aggravated crime resulted in 18 prosecutions. The increase in race cases received by the CPS in 2002-2003 followed a 20 per cent jump the previous year. Of the 4,192 received, cases were brought against 3,116 defendants, 442 more than in 2001-2002. Seven out of 10 of the charges resulted in guilty pleas and 15 per cent in convictions after a trial. Legal experts say that race-related hate crimes in England and Wales has reached record levels because of fear regarding the Government's policy on immigration. But race groups, lawyers and academics said the statistics did not tell the full story. Professor Gus John, a former key adviser on race to the CPS, said that work needed to be done to establish whether there was a 'correlation' between a rise in race crime and the Government's policy on the dispersal of asylum-seekers around the country."