Amber Rudd, the new Home Secretary, has produced a four-year action plan which aims to tackle the problem of hate crime. However the 40-page document focusses strongly on race and faith-based hate, and provides few if any fresh ideas for addressing disability hate crime.
This is despite figures from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which found that disability hate crime makes up one-third of all hate crime, even though under-reporting means it only represented five per cent of hate crimes recorded by police in 2014-15.
Stephen Brookes, coordinator of the Disability Hate Crime Network, said: ‘The Home Office action plan said absolutely nothing in terms of disability hate crime.’ He went on to say that it is vital for disabled people to submit evidence to a current Government Hate Crime Inquiry being carried out by the Home Affairs Select Committee ( closing date 1 September ).
For more on this story, see this article in the Disability News Service . Disability Rights UK has produced a factsheet on on Disability Hate Crime and you can report a hate crime at the True Vision website.
