Shockingly high number of anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes not reported to police, study finds

The majority of LGBTQ+ hate crime victims fail to report to police because they feel it’s “too minor” and they don’t trust the service, a new study has found.  In a bid to highlight the alarming rise in hate crime and incidents against the queer community, a study for an app cracking down on LGBTQ+ hate crime has uncovered some harrowing truths. 

According to the report commissioned by the Vodafone Foundation, 68 per cent of people in the queer community say they have been subjected to a hate crime because of their sexual orientation or gender identity in the past year.  A further 27 per cent said they had suffered physical injury from a hate-fuelled attack, while 65 per cent reported being verbally abused or ridiculed.

But a staggering 75 per cent of these victims said they had never reported a hate crime to the police.  Just over half (53 per cent) of people surveyed said they felt the incident was too minor to be reported, while 42 per cent said they didn’t trust the police to take their report seriously, or do anything about it. 

The online survey polled results from 1,0008 adults aged 18 and over in the LGBTQ+ community. It follows a sharp increase in queer hate crimes nationwide, with recent Home Office figures detailing at least 155,841 recorded hate crimes from March 2021 to March 2022. According to the report hate crimes rose by about 26 per cent from the previous year. This is the most significant increase in reported hate crimes since 2016/17, when stats showed a 29 per cent increase compared to 2015/16. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Article URL : https://www.thepinknews.com/2022/12/14/lgbtq-hate-crimes-go-unreported/