HC Deb 12 February 2004 vol 417 cc1711-2W
Chris Ruane

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the incidence of(a) domestic violence and (b) hate crimes was for each local authority area in North Wales in each of the last 10 years. [154304]

Ms Blears

Domestic violence is not separately identified in the recorded crime statistics collected by the Home Office, therefore the number of incidents of domestic violence in England and Wales are measured by the British Crime Survey (BCS).

In the 2002–03 BCS there were an estimated 69 incidents of domestic violence, per 10,000 adults in Wales. In the 2001–02 BCS there were 139 incidents of domestic violence, per 10,000 adults in Wales. There are no comparable data for the years preceding 2001–02.

Within the recorded crime series, 'hate crimes' are deemed to be offences that are racially or religiously aggravated. There are seven separate offences that are classified as racially or religiously aggravated. These are; less serious wounding, harassment, common assault, criminal damage to a dwelling, criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling, criminal damage to a vehicle, and other criminal damage. Racially aggravated offences were added to the series from 1 April 1999, prior to that they would have been included in the original classifications. Religiously aggravated offences were recorded together with racially aggravated offences from April 2002.

Figures for these offences are not published for local authority areas. However, figures are available at police force area level, and are given in the table. Numbers of racially (or religiously aggravated) offences, recorded by North Wales Police.

Offences recorded
1999–2000 35
2000–01 108
2001–021 173
2002–032 288
1 North Wales police adopted the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) in October 2001, which was earlier than the national implementation in England and Wales on 1 April 2002. Broadly, the NCRS had the effect of increasing the number of crimes recorded by the police. Therefore, following the introduction of the standard, numbers of recorded crimes are not comparable with previous years.
2 Religiously aggravated offences were recorded together with racially aggravated offences from April 2002.