§ Mr. VazTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of racially motivated offences there were in the last year for which figures are available. [68220]
§ Mr. BoatengIndividual forces submit their racial incidents figures to Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary at the end of each year. These are incidents recorded under the Association of Chief Police Officers' definition of a racial incident
Any incident in which it appears to the reporting or investigating officer that the complaint involves an element of racial motivation; or any incident which includes an allegation of racial motivation made by any person".Incidents included here are wider than the normal definition of a crime in the crime statistics and include low level harassment.The latest available figure for the number of racial incidents recorded by the police in England and Wales is 13,878 in 1997/98. A breakdown of the number of incidents recorded by the police by each police area in 1997/98 is given in the Home Office publication "Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System" 1998, a copy of which is available in the Library.
The Home Office has requested all forces to provide separate recorded crime statistics for the racially aggravated offences of wounding, harassment, common assault and criminal damage (in line with the new offences contained in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998) from April 1999, and first figures will be published in January 2000.