Hate Crime is on the rise, with a 29% rise in reporting in one year to 80,393 in 2016-17. (Home Office report on Hate Crime 2016/17). A University of Huddersfield report estimated that more than double that amount go unreported each year (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161020092232.htm).
Hate Crime victims more often feel traumatised by the incident. With 92% emotionally affected, compared to 81% for victims of crime generally. They are also less likely to be satisfied by the police handling of the incident, with only 52% satisfied, compared to 73% for victims of crime generally (Crime Survey for England and Wales 2012-13 & 2014-15).
Our research shows that Hate Crime victims are not currently getting the support that they need. The Criminal Justice System needs new ways of tackling Hate Crime and meeting those needs.
Restorative Justice has the potential to really address the harms caused by Hate Crime. It has the potential to bring the reality of victims’ suffering into focus for Hate Crime offenders. This can break down prejudice and allow offenders to see the humanity in their victim. It also has the potential to allow Hate Crime victims to take back control by telling their story and having their voice heard.
Yet, despite featuring in the Government’s 2012 Hate Crime Strategy, Restorative Justice is not mentioned in current 2016 Strategy, Action Against Hate.
Support for Prof. Mark Walters’ evidence
Having watched the oral evidence given by Professor Walters to this inquiry, Why me? Supports his position of seeing Restorative Justice as a smart response to Hate Crime. As a service providing charity, we have seen first hand the transformational effects that Restorative Justice can have for victims of crime and we see the potential that it has to help victims of Hate Crime to feel empowered by having their voice heard, to get closure by having their questions answered and to take back control. We also see the potential that Restorative Justice has to rehabilitate Hate Crime offenders, through bringing the victim’s suffering into focus, allowing them to see the impact of their crime and ultimately breaking down prejudice. Restorative Justice has the benefit of being able to provide a positive way forward for all involved.
1) John’s story – Homophobia on the bus - text copied from Avon and Somerset Police
The victim John* (*real names not used) was waiting at his usual bus stop to make the journey to work, the bus pulled up but about 15 metres away from the bus stop. There was a heavy downpour which meant John got rather wet as he walked up to the bus. Upon getting onto the bus John light heartedly suggested to the driver that he could have moved down to the bus stop so that he and other passengers would not get soaked through.
The bus driver responded by saying “what’s your problem?” again John explained that he was soaked through. The bus driver then exploded waving his fists at John and using homophobic language and swearing at him. John felt extremely intimidated by this behaviour so got off of the bus and chose not to make his journey on that particular bus to work.
Although this may seem like a minor altercation on public transport, there were effects on the victim that sat quite deeply. John had not long accepted his sexuality as being homosexual, therefore to him the attack felt somewhat personal. In addition following the verbal altercation, John was fearful of getting the bus to work wondering whether the same driver would be sat there waiting to abuse him.
When the OIC spoke to the victim he immediately thought that Restorative Justice (RJ) could be an option as a way of dealing with this incident. The OIC explained the process and how it worked and gave the victim sometime to think about it. In speaking to the harmer he took responsibility for what happened and suggested he didn’t mean anything by the homophobic comments. The harmer was of Polish nationality and spoke very little English, he suggested this was a factor in the comments he made. The harmer was open to RJ and wanted the opportunity to apologise to the victim
Going back to the victim he too wanted to engage in RJ, therefore the OIC utilised a Community Resolution using RJ as the supporting process.
Upon the RJ team receiving the referral both parties were prepped individually first to ensure they were happy with the process and the motives for engagement were appropriate. For John he wanted to explain the effects that the verbal comments had had on him and wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to happen again, not just to him but anyone.
The meeting was positive, although an interpreter was needed, clear messages were taken on board by the harmer and he was able to show true remorse to the victim.
“I was able to get a sense of closure by confronting the bus driver in a respectful manner and asking him to take responsibility for his actions.
If there is any chance for the bus driver to consider the implications of his actions and possibly even revise his homophobic views, I believe the RJ Conference could have provided a starting point. A starting point that would not have been reached had we gone down the punitive route.”
The harmer agreed to take on further learning about hate crime and equality so attended a session with SARI to help with this. He too felt the process gave closure and a chance for him to repair the harm.
2) Daniel’s story – Antisemitism in the street - text copied from Restorative Justice Council
Daniel became the victim of anti-Semitic hate crime while out walking in his local area. Here he explains how restorative justice enabled him to tell the offender exactly how the crime had impacted on him.
“I’m a 43-year old Mancunian born and raised in Salford. I live there now with my wife and three kids. One Saturday morning I was walking with my brother-in-law along a road I walk down regularly past a synagogue. In front of us, there was a group of children who I know – we were on our way to attend a Bar Mitzvah that they were also going to.
“As we walked along, a white Vauxhall Astra drove past. The driver was honking the horn at the boys, while a man leaned out of the passenger window shouting, ‘A Jew, a Jew’. He shouted it again as the car passed me and my brother-in-law.
“I was wearing a suit, rather than more traditional Jewish clothing - no big furry hat, no ringlets and no flowing beard. I don’t carry a phone on the Sabbath, but I reported it the next day. Fortunately I had recalled the number plate of the car in question and reported the incident online to the Community Security Trust, a charity that protects British Jews from anti-Semitism.
“I was contacted by police sergeant Steve Wightman-Love and police constable Neil Cheslett from Greater Manchester Police. They explained that the incident was classified as a public order offence and that it had been recognised that there was a racist element. Shortly afterwards, PC Cheslett got in touch to let me know that the car the men had been travelling in was registered in West Yorkshire. He then told me about restorative justice and asked if I wanted to meet the man who’d been shouting the abuse.
“Having grown up in Manchester as a Jew, I’ve become used to having to put up with racist incidents since the age of 11, so I wasn’t left emotionally distraught, or lying awake at night by the event. I wasn’t thinking that I needed to leave the country for the sake of my children, or anything like that. I didn’t believe running away from the problem was the right approach and I thought the perpetrator needed to be challenged on his actions. Restorative justice offered me the chance to do that.
“From a victim’s perspective, the way the police treated the case spoke volumes. It provided a huge source of comfort that the authorities were taking hate crime so seriously. I was told that I would be accompanied in the meeting room by two police officers. The police explained that at first the offender – Lee* – was likely to offer an excuse for his behaviour, but that by the end of the meeting they hoped that he would be able to understand the consequences of his actions and offer an apology.
“I’d thought I was relatively unaffected by the incident, but on the day of the restorative justice conference, different emotions started to surface. I felt a deep-seated frustration with people who act that way and their hatred, which is baseless. I do everything I can to live in an integrated world, and I struggled to understand why others wouldn’t want to do the same.
"There were four police officers in the room, PS Wightman-Love and PC Cheslett and two other police observers who had asked permission to sit in on the conference. I’d decided to wear what I usually wear on a Sunday to show to Lee how normal I was. Coincidentally, we were wearing virtually identical clothes. We both had brown boots, jeans and a puffer jacket on. I pointed out this out to Lee, and I think this struck a chord with him. I just happened to have a slightly different belief system to him.
“I was asked to tell Lee how I felt about what had happened. That’s when my blood started to boil - I was so angry that he’d levelled his abuse at children. The excuse he offered in return was like something a child would come up with. He claimed that he was speaking to the driver and not us, and that he was only shouting as the driver couldn’t hear him because he had his head out the window.
“He even tried to excuse his behaviour by saying that he didn’t understand Jews as he was from Leeds where there weren’t many. But then I told him that my mother was from the same part of Leeds as he was, at which point he started to change his tune. I asked him how he would feel if anyone had abused a member of his family in that way. I was quite surprised how emotional I got.
“Eventually Lee said that what he’d done was ‘a bit of banter’, but that he realised that it was wrong of him and he apologised. He never went as far as saying, ‘I purposely set out to discriminate against you,’ but he accepted that his actions were hurtful and were wrong.
“I feel that restorative justice in this case was more effective than a police caution ever would have been. It wasn’t about catharsis for me, it was about Lee understanding why what he had done was wrong and for him to go away not wanting to act in that way again. I also wanted him to realise that Jewish people are just the same as him in many ways.
“After the meeting, Lee left the room first and I was asked if talking to him had made me feel better. It was strange because although I'd said I wasn’t emotionally harmed by the incident, I knew from the way my blood had boiled during the course of the process that, actually, it must have affected me.
“But at the end of the process, it was all about education. It was about teaching Lee why it was wrong, and I honestly do believe that he won’t act in the same way again. I'm not saying we’re friends or that we’re ever going to see each other again, but there was certainly a relatively warm handshake between us at the end of the meeting.
“If somebody told me that they'd been a victim of a hate crime, I would recommend restorative justice if it was an option for them. There is a catharsis that comes from meeting an offender and finding out why you were picked on. But I think, more than that, we all have a responsibility to educate.
And the only way we can educate is a little bit at a time, one at a time. Having that offender understand the deep impact that they had on the victim, to me, is very important. Punishment is not the same as education.”
The RJC would like to thank Greater Manchester Police and Daniel for sharing his story with us.
*Lee’s name has been changed.
3) Graham’s story – LGBT+phobia in the petrol station - text copied from Pink News
Graham Holmes reveals to PinkNews the harrowing truth of hate crimes the LGBT community experience on a daily basis.
The victim, currently living in Ipswich, describes himself as a proud gender-fluid individual who identifies as male.
Like a fairly large proportion of the LGBT community, Holmes has experienced being a victim of a hate crime first hand, and says he is shocked by Equality and Human Rights Commission data which estimates that 35,000 anti-LGBT hate crimes go unreported each year.
Holmes describes the last incident he experienced, which took place in May 2013: “I had been shopping like I normally would do on a Saturday morning and I went to get some petrol and went to the kiosk to pay.”
Describing what he was wearing on that memorable day, he said: “Just an ordinary sort of t-shirt, short-ish, just above the knee denim skirt, I can’t remember if I was wearing trainers or flats at the time, but you know I mean it was nothing provocative.”
Upon walking to the counter to pay, he was pushed out of the way: “This guy barged past me, knocked me out the way, so technically it was a physical assault”. What he was about to hear next left him astonished.
“Excuse me I was in the queue.” Graham said. “Shut your mouth you f****ing queer.” Replied the man. Graham described the people in the garage and the people behind the till as ‘gob smacked’ and after speaking them for a while, he also found out that the man was a regular customer at the supermarket.
“The CCTV didn’t catch the registration of the man’s bike, but because he was a regular customer the police were called and they looked at the CCTV and couldn’t see it either.” Graham said.
However Graham reported that about six weeks later the man returned and the CCTV was able to catch the registration plate of the bike. The police began to track him down and ended up knocking on his door.
Graham proceeded to say: “Apparently his wife was absolutely mortified when they asked her husband to come down. I mean he’s 70 years old, he didn’t look it, but he is 70 years old.”
The police asked him whether he wanted to prosecute the man who had had physically and verbally assaulted him. To everyone’s amazement Graham replied: “Well I don’t want to punish him because I’ll just make an enemy…No I want him to sit down and talk to me and tell me why he did that.
“It was the first time I’d actually done anything like that,” he went on.
Restorative justice is an approach to a crime that has been committed where the victim and offender are able to sit down face to face and discuss the matter, rather than taking legal action.
Graham told PinkNews it’s not something “that happens as often as you think”. Nevertheless, he took this opportunity for everything it was worth.
“Yeah the police were good, they set it up and we sat down in I think it was Tesco’s or Sainsbury’s in their coffee shop and a police officer was there as a moderator.” He said.
“I’m really sorry, that’s the way I am, I’m 70 years old and it was the way I was brought up.” The man, Graham called ‘Robert’, proceeded to say: “Oh it’s just bravado.” He continued, eventually running out of excuses.
Graham then began to question Robert: “Right okay now, why did you do it? Do you realise the effect that it has? Do you realise the effect that it might have had?” He continued: “If I went home and slit my wrists about it, what would you have thought about that?”
“So you know, I could see after about the course of 20 minutes, I could see that these questions were beginning to sink in.” Graham said.
“I actually had a little questionnaire set out too, what I call my five questions. Things like ‘why is your opinion more important than anyone else’s and why should I have to listen to it? Things like that.” He continued.
Eventually Robert started to come round and started to understand and, “Asked if he could have a copy and take it home to do some research.”
“‘Okay, yeah fine.” Graham agreed.
“So we sort of shook hands, went our separate ways, and I walked out to the car park with the police officer who said, ‘well that went better than I thought,’” he explained.
About three weeks later, sooner than expected, Holmes said: “I ran into the guy at Sainsbury’s, not deliberately, he had to be there and I had to be there. I didn’t see him, the first thing I heard was him calling my name.”
He continued: “This guy comes bounding up to me, shaking my hand and says, ‘how are you doing?’ And I was just amazed. He was just stood there shaking my hand and he said, ‘You know it’s great to see you.’ ‘I gotta go, my wife’s over there.’ And that was it, and I got the feeling he wanted to make sure everyone within a 50 yard radius had heard him and seen him with me. Which is a bit of a far cry from him swearing at me in a petrol station.”
“So you know what I mean, the restorative justice part of it worked, and it worked really well. But you never know, did he disappear off to the car park later thinking ‘what a sucker!’ But I don’t think he did, because meeting him later, he didn’t have to do that because I didn’t see him.” Graham said.
After asking if he thought restorative justice could help stop incidents like he experienced from happening in the future he said: “For me yeah, oh I’d definitely do it again. But it does require a lot of courage on the victim.”
He continued: “That’s the only thing, if people aren’t going to come forward and admit they have been abused, they’re certainly not going to want to report it to the police, and they certainly aren’t going to want to sit down opposite the guy who abused them.”
The Equality and Human Rights Commission estimated yesterday that around 35,000 go unreported each year.
In response to this, Graham said: “I am a little bit disappointed with the figures that came out this week about the levels of reporting. The average amount of reporting is what, 15%?”
He continued: “I can understand why people don’t want to report it, but I would always advocate doing so. I think that’s where I stand on the matter really…So yeah it’ll take a while, but I live in hope.”
Why me? is currently running a project aiming to improve Hate Crime victims’ access to Restorative Justice. Building on the work of academics, we are finding practical ways of improving Hate Crime victims’ access to Restorative Justice.
We are currently working with Lancashire and Cambridgeshire Constabularies and Police and Crime Commissioner’s Offices to explore innovative ways to ensure that victims can make an informed choice about their recovery. We will soon also begin work with Avon and Somerset.
We are working with local community groups to understand the perceptions of local people, the barriers to Restorative Justice and the considerations that practitioners need to be aware of in order to make Hate Crime RJ truly accessible and effective.
Building on Prof. Mark Walters’ work, we acknowledge that traditional RJ practice may need to be altered to enable it to be as effective as possible with Hate Crime cases. Particularly, we are aware that Hate Crime RJ may diverge from RJ for other crimes in that the common victim question ‘why me?’ may not be as relevant, the capacity of RJ to be ‘life-changing’ may be diminished because the victim is likely to continue to suffer from discrimination, and we must be particularly aware of the power dynamics between the victim and offender.
As part of this project, we aim to produce best practice guidance for Restorative Justice practitioners who are facilitating RJ specifically in hate crime cases. We believe that, when published, this will may be of interest to the Home Affairs Select Committee and the work of the Home Office. This guidance is scheduled to be published in March 2019.
July 2018