Information Centre

What is hate crime?

A hate crime is any criminal offence committed against a person or property that is motivated by the offenders' hate against people because of their sex, race, religion, disability or sexual orientation. A victim of hate crime does not have to be either a member of a minority group or someone who is generally considered to be a 'vulnerable' person.

A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person."

A homophobic or transphobic incident is any incident which is perceived to be homophobic or transphobic by the victim or any other person.

The definitions above are what GMP use when recording hate crime. In practice what they mean is that if anyone believes that any incident (whether a crime or not) is racist, homophobic or motivated by hatred based on religion, gender or disability, GMP will record it as such.

This means that if you tell the police about something that you think is a hate crime then the police will believe you and they will record what you are saying as a hate crime without question.

Physical attacks, verbal abuse, damage to property, offensive letters and leaflets, neighbour disputes, threats, abusive gestures, arson. Hate crime can take many forms.