Written by Natalia Urbaniak, young person, January 2025
Hate crime rates are on the rise in the UK. Just last summer, the nation’s news headlines and streets were flooded with reports of a widespread race riot fuelled by hatred, hostility, and violence. However, reports of this type of discriminatory, criminal behaviour aren’t isolated to these two spaces alone. Unfortunately, hate crimes and hate incidents are also flooding UK schools. It’s time to raise awareness of what hate crime is and isn’t and how schools can work to prevent it.
What is a hate crime?
A hate crime is defined as any criminal offence that is motivated by hostility or prejudice on the basis of race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity. A criminal offence is something that breaks the law and, as a result, hate crimes typically come in the form of physical assaults, harassment, or damage to property. However, a hate crime can also include ‘malicious communication’, meaning the online or offline sending of threatening, hostile or prejudice words, pictures, videos or music to a person or group of people based on their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity.
The most common hate crimes in the UK are racially motivated. In the years 2023-2024, there were 98,799 crimes perpetrated on the basis of race. However, there were also 22,839 based on sexual orientation, 11,719 based on disability, and 10,484 based on religion. Overall, this amounts to 143,841 hate crimes perpetuated and reported in the UK in just 1 year. Thus, despite some positive social changes and progression towards creating a fairer society, discrimination, prejudice, and overall lack of community are still widespread issues in the UK. Most crucial, in fact, is how these issues have evolved and buried their roots in our education system.
The rise of hate incidents and hate crime in education
The number of hate incidents reported in UK schools is climbing. Just 3 years ago, schools in the UK were recording 60,000 racist incidents in the 5 years prior. This number is shocking but also deeply worrying as it raises concerns about two wider issues in education: the prevalence of bullying (a hate incident) and a lack of education on hate crime for young people.
In comparison to a hate crime, a hate incident is defined as any incident that is motivated by hostility or prejudice on the basis of race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity, but isn’t classed as a crime by law. Hate incidents typically include litter in the garden, dirty stares, or noise nuisance. However, even a ‘harmless’ offensive joke, name-calling or abusive gestures (e.g. swearing) between friends can be considered a hate incident.
A hate incident can also quickly evolve into a hate crime once there a criminal act is involved. For example, if a dirty stare were to escalate into a physical attack that was committed because of someone’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity, it would move from a hate incident to a hate crime.
The impact of hate crime in schools
On Friday 13th of November 2020, a violent hate crime occurred at a secondary school in Telford. A young member of the Sikh community was violently assaulted by two school peers. The attack was unwarranted and treated as a hate crime because the act was motivated by prejudice on the basis of religion. At the time, the UK Sikh Council said Sikh children were often targeted by bullies for the way they looked – i.e. for their headwrap and unshorn hair.
The consequences of committing a crime like this can be extremely damaging to the victim. For instance, they are likely to be overcome by fear and trauma because of the way in which they were degraded. On the flip side, there are also long-lasting consequences for the perpetrator too.
The consequences of committing a hate crime are dire for the culprit. If you have committed a hate crime, you may face court and be sent to prison. In fact, 85% of 13,307 hate crime cases that were brought to the Crown Prosecution Service in the rolling year up until June 2024, resulted in a criminal conviction. Following the year 2020, any hate crimes that are motivated by race or religion are subject to face harsher sentencing in a criminal court. In the context of hate crimes in schools, you may be recorded on an in-school system that monitors discriminatory behaviours and can be brought up if you were to transfer school or trying to move onto higher education. Furthermore, the police may be contacted to further investigate and determine a fitting punishment.
How can we prevent hate crime in schools?
One of the best ways to prevent the emergence of hate crimes in schools is through education. Through educating young people on the outcomes associated with this discriminatory behaviour, they can understand the impact of hate crime on victims, but also the consequences that committing a hate crime can have on perpetrators and their future. Organisations such as Stop Hate UK provide training and education suitable for a range of demographics to educate people on hate. This can be very useful in helping us young people to thoroughly understand the repercussions of committing a hate crime, whether that be a criminal conviction, prison sentence, or permanent criminal record.
If you have been subjected to, or witnessed, a hate crime in an educational setting, there are also several courses of action that you can take. Primarily, a significant step is reporting the incident to a trusted adult within your school, who can then escalate it to the appropriate senior leader (e.g. headteacher). This can seem daunting and feel as if reporting will only cause repercussions for yourself if the perpetrator was to find out, but staying silent will actually only cause more harm. The only way hate crime can be reduced is by speaking out about it and ensuring that perpetrators receive a just punishment for the severity of their transgression. Another course of action would be to directly contact the police. This will enable law enforcement to step in, directly deal with the hate crime perpetrator, and ensure they receive a just punishment.
Hate crime can be a sensitive topic. If you live in the UK and have been affected by hate crime and would like some support, please contact the Stop Hate Line. Additional information on where and how to report a hate crime can be found here. The best thing that you can do to prevent hate crime is to speak about it.