PRESS RELEASE

Local group issues call to scrap the word “victim” to commemorate hate crime awareness week

Northamptonshire Rights and Equality Council (NREC), a specialist support agency supporting local people targeted by hate crime has called for agencies dealing with hate crime perpetrators to scrap the use of the word “victim”. They are also calling for an urgent review of local multiagency hate crime structures.

The group points to the repeated axing of hate crime support nine years ago in 2014 and again in 2022.

Anjona Roy, Chief Executive of NREC stated,

“When the highly respected Hate crime Unit in Northamptonshire Police was axed in 2014 without an equality impact assessment, local stakeholders were promised that this would be reviewed but there has been no sign of this.

Since 2020, our organisation has been calling for an independent review to be held on how hate crime/incidents in Northamptonshire are dealt with by statutory and voluntary organisations, the resources that are allocated explicitly to tackling hate crime and how effective current responses are by all agencies involved.

In October 2021, local councils and Northamptonshire Police invested in a specialist hate crime reporting service for one year and then quietly axed it last year. Since then, North Northamptonshire Council has adopted a community safety strategy which states that it will “strengthen our resources for dealing with hate crime and community tensions” but we see no evidence of this.

We are now calling on agencies to cease using the word “victim” to describe those targeted by hate crime. We want agencies to treat local people who are targeted with hate crime with the respect that they deserve. Inadequate responses from agencies who are there to support people who are targeted and work tirelessly to secure sanctions against perpetrators further victimise local people who have had to endure hate”.

NREC hate crime and incident support includes reassuring people who are targeted that the experience is not imagined, working for their interests to receive best services from reporting agencies and acknowledge long-term trauma of prolonged unaddressed incidents.

Hate crime week runs from 14th – 21st October 2023. Northamptonshire Rights and Equality Council is running a series of events to encourage and support the reporting of hate crime and to work with others to increase the support to those targeted and the work undertaken to bring perpetrators to justice.