Racial violence statistics - Institute of Race Relations

These statistics have been collated from a variety of different sources, which have differing ways of categorising and describing ‘race’ and ethnicity. (For example, some sources differentiate between particular black ‘groups’ whilst others do not. Some sources may just use the term Asian, others may differentiate between different Asian groups or different religious groups.) Where we have used other organisations’ statistics, we have followed the categorisation/names used by them – which means that there may be inconsistencies in terminology within and between pages.

Racist incidents
A racist incident, according to the police, is any incident, including any crime, which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person’s ‘race’ or perceived ‘race’. In 2013/14, there were 47,571 ‘racist incidents’ recorded by the police in England and Wales. On average, that is about 130 incidents per day.
Hate crimes
A ‘Hate crime’ is defined in law as any criminal offence committed against a person or property that is motivated by hostility towards someone based on any aspect of their identity. The five strands of hate crime monitored by police in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland are: disability, gender identity, race ethnicity or nationality, religion, faith of belief and sexual orientation. In 2013/14, there were 44,480 hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales. Of these, 37,484 were recorded as race hate crime and 2,273 as religious hate crimes.
Crime Survey for England and Wales
Racial violence is largely underreported to the police. According to Home Office statistics, from 2012-2015 there has been, on average, 106,000 racially motivated ‘hate crimes’ per year. Both the 2012/13 and 2014/15 Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) highlight that victims of hate crime are less likely to think the police had treated them fairly or with respect, compared with victims of CSEW crime overall. Of hate crime incidents (not exclusively those motivated by ‘race’) reported to the police, 59 per cent of victims believed the police treated them fairly, compared with 81 per cent of CSEW crime overall.
Crown Prosecution Service
In 2013/14, the number of defendants who were referred by the police to the CPS for a charging decision for racially and religiously aggravated crimes rose 14.7 per cent from the previous year, to 12,184. The number of prosecutions completed during this year increased by 9 per cent to 12,368.The number of convictions for racist or religious hate crime rose from 9,415 to 10,532 and the proportion of ‘successful outcomes’ was 85.2 per cent.
Deaths with a known or suspected racial element
The Institute of Race Relations monitors deaths with a known or suspected racial element in the UK.[1] Our research indicates that in the twenty years after April 1993 that there were at least 105 such deaths in the UK.
Of these, the vast majority (eighty-five) were in England, with five in Wales, twelve in Scotland and three in Northern Ireland. Within England, twenty-eight murders took place in London.
Twenty people were killed whilst at work as taxi-drivers, as shopkeepers and at pubs or clubs. Whilst the majority of the murders that we recorded involved attacks in the street, eight came from attacks on people in their homes. Of these, several were arson attacks.

References:[1] The IRR considers that the identification of racially motivated murders and attacks must depend on an objective evaluation of the whole context in which the murder or attack takes place and not just on the skin colour or ethnicity of the alleged perpetrator(s) or victim. In particular, the IRR would regard a murder or attack as racially motivated if the evidence indicates that someone of a different ethnicity, in the same place and similar circumstances, would not have been attacked in the same way. Subject to the above, a formal legal finding or allegation of racial motivation would be taken as prima facie (but not definitive) evidence that a murder or attack was racially motivated.