Understanding and Tackling Barriers to Reporting Hate Crime: Evidence Review

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

The Hate Crime Strategy for Scotland sets out the Scottish Government’s key priorities for tackling hate crime and prejudice (Scottish Government, 2023a). Priorities include:

• Improving support for victims of hate crime
• Improving data and evidence on hate crime
• Developing effective approaches to preventing hate crime

An associated Delivery Plan was also published in 2023 (Scottish Government, 2023b). This outlined a range of activity to be taken forward by the Scottish Government with partners up to 2026 to tackle hate crime.

One of the key aims of the Hate Crime Strategy is that ‘victims of hate crime are treated with fairness, compassion and in a trauma-informed manner in which their safety and recovery is a priority’. A crucial step to support this aim is encouraging people who experience hate crime or who witness it to report it. However, the Strategy acknowledges ‘a general consensus that hate crime is under-reported and that some people have concerns about approaching the police to report it’.

Reporting hate crime is important as it allows people to access justice and support as victims or witnesses. Reporting also helps to strengthen the available data to better understand hate crime in Scotland which informs how to tackle it. Therefore, one of the key commitments in the Hate Crime Strategy is to ‘regularly review and strengthen our activities that seek to address the various barriers to reporting’. Relatedly, enhancing understanding on barriers to reporting is set out as one of the key deliverables to be taken forward in the Delivery Plan to help meet this commitment (Scottish Government, 2023b).

1.2 Purpose and research questions

To support the aims of the Hate Crime Strategy and Delivery Plan around under-reporting, this report summarises findings from a range of evidence sources to provide an overview of barriers to reporting hate crime. Key insights on effective strategies and approaches for overcoming the barriers identified are also highlighted where relevant.

In summary, the report provides an overview which addresses the following broad questions:

• What are the main barriers to reporting hate crime?
• What does the evidence tell us about effective approaches to tackle these barriers?

1.3 Methodology, scope and limitations

This report draws on a variety of quantitative and qualitative evidence sources, including government reports, reports by other public and third sector organisations, journal articles, and books. However, the report is not an exhaustive review of the evidence. See Annex A for more information on the search strategy. Instead, it aims to add value by presenting a summary of key findings and themes from the wide range of sources considered, in one output. This evidence review benefitted from reports recommended or produced by, or on behalf of, members of the Hate Crime Strategic Partnership Group^[1]. Given the focus on supporting the commitments in the Hate Crime Strategy for Scotland, this report mainly considers sources from Scotland, or elsewhere in the UK.

The strategies to tackle barriers to reporting hate crime included in this report have been evaluated and found to be effective to varying degrees. However, it can be challenging to robustly assess the relationship between these strategies and reporting. Therefore, there is limited evidence that confirms ‘what works’.

A number of strategies apply to multiple barriers to reporting hate crime. Similarly, there are several interventions that exist to improve victims’ experiences of reporting all forms of crime, not just hate crime. Consequently, this report also includes examples of strategies that align with the identified barriers to reporting but may not look to address hate crime specifically.

More generally, it is important to note that findings from research with specific communities may not be representative of the experiences of the wider public or communities beyond those who participated in the research cited. Nonetheless, this evidence is relevant and important to include as it demonstrates experiences highlighted by at least some individuals or groups, which may extend to others or apply more generally.