New figures released this week show that London gay hate crime figures have soared – and Metropolitan Police are calling this a “positive sign”.
Since June 2008, London has seen an overall increase of 13.5% in reported homophobic crimes.
A spokesperson from the Met said that the figures showed that reporting has increased. “We see this as a positive sign. People from this community are increasingly reporting crimes to the police, and although we are aware of and concerned about under-reporting, we are taking a range of measures to encourage people to come forward – working with our partners, making sure that victims feel safe, and promoting arrests and prosecution of perpetrators.”
But it remains difficult to say whether these figures show an increase in reporting, or rather an increase in actual gay hate crimes – there are no figures to show homophobic crimes that were previously not reported to police, so there is no benchmark to show that victims have greater confidence in the police.
Galop, London’s LGBT community safety charity, has not been so quick to assess the figures as an improvement. “It’s a very difficult thing to judge,” said Deborah Gold, Galop’s chief executive. “It probably does show that more people are reporting, because in our own figures, we don’t have evidence of an enormous increase in homophobic crimes.
“But we have also not seen a decrease – and that, in itself, is a concern.”
“Recently, there have been massive legal changes, and you would expect to see, alongside those, a massive decrease in homophobic crime. But that hasn’t happened.”
No immediate Met Police statistics were available that would show the breakdown across genders, but Gold said that there were far more reported crimes against men than against women – although this does not necessarily mean that there are fewer hate crimes against women.
Most boroughs in London saw an increase in reported hate crimes, with Barking and Dagenham, Barnet and Bexley seeing the sharpest rises; and Kingston upon Thames and Haringey seeing the largest decreases.
REPORTED HOMOPHOBIC CRIMES
Actual figures are low, so large increases in percentage do not necessarily reflect an enormous surge in reported hate crimes.
UP (%)
Barking and Dagenham 166.7
Barnet 122.2
Bexley 120
Enfield 111.1
Richmond Upon Thames 87.5
Brent 87.5
Harrow 66.7
Southwark 52.3
Ealing 51.9
Waltham Forest 43.8
Greenwich 36.4
Hammersmith and Fulham 34.4
Tower Hamlets 33.3
Islington 30.3
Havering 28.6
Camden 20.9
Hackney 14.8
Croydon 14.3
Sutton 14.3
Lambeth 14.1
Merton 8.3
Hounslow 7.1
Lewisham 3.3
DOWN (%)
Kingston Upon Thames 55.6
Haringey 41.4
Bromley 29.2
Hillingdon 25
Westminster 16.8
Wandsworth 15.8
Kensington and Chelsea 12.1
Redbridge 11.8
SAME
Newham