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Religious hate crimes in England and Wales hit a record high, with many still unreported

by DD Staff

October 15, 2024

Religious hate crimes. Shutterstock

key takeaways

The enduring consequences of hate crimes are quite worrisome. Constantly discriminated against victims are more likely to age too soon and have bad health results.

Religious hate crimes in England and Wales have reached unprecedented levels. New Home Office statistics show that while overall hate crime dropped by 5% in the year leading to March 2024, religious hate crimes surged by 25%.

Hate crimes targeting Jewish individuals more than doubled from the previous year, accounting for 33% of all religion-based hate crimes. Crimes against Muslims also increased by 13%, making up 38% of the total.

Following the Israel-Hamas conflict in October 2023, there was a significant rise in reported incidents against both Jewish and Muslim communities. Though the number of offences has since decreased, they remain higher than before the conflict.

These statistics are based on police-recorded hate crimes, but other groups also monitor such incidents. Tell Mama, which tracks anti-Muslim hate, recorded a 335% increase in cases after October 7, 2023, compared to the previous year. Similarly, the Community Security Trust reported a 147% rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 compared to 2022, with 66% of incidents occurring after October 7.

The October 7 attacks are an example of a trigger event that usually precedes a spike in hate crime. These events can “galvanise tensions and sentiments against the suspected perpetrators and groups associated with them”.

Trigger events can be one-off events or last only a short period of time, but the continuing high levels of hate crime that the UK has seen over the past year is still likely due to the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

These trends had been increasing worldwide, and not only since the latest conflict. A UN report in 2021 found that Islamophobia had reached “epidemic proportions”. Additionally, as my colleagues and I have found in our research, such racism is also experienced by a diverse range of ethnic groups and not only Muslims. A rise in antisemitism has been recorded around the world too.

Unreported hate

Not only are the latest statistics in the UK alarming, they are only the tip of the iceberg. As my work on the inquiry into Islamophobia in Scotland found, many incidents go unreported.

We found that many did not report incidents due to concerns about institutional racism in the police and a lack of confidence in policing and in the criminal justice system. Added to this were worries about not having enough evidence, the incident not being “serious enough”, and fear of reprisal. Some even felt that it happened so often that there was “no point” in reporting it.

The enduring consequences of hate crimes are quite worrisome. Constantly discriminated against victims are more likely to age too soon and have bad health results.

Additionally, the growing numbers foster a culture of fear that may deter members of religious or ethnic minorities from fully engaging in society. In our research, my colleagues and I discovered that Islamophobia and discrimination have prevented some Muslims from going out to socialise and from taking part in politics.

Others, however, made the inspiring decision to take up greater community service in an effort to dispel misconceptions about Muslims.

Making prejudice mainstream

There are other causes that contribute to the rise in hate crimes, especially against Muslims, in addition to the Israel-Hamas war.

The first is the abundance of groups and people who spread hate and anti-Muslim rhetoric, including as media outlets, internet influencers, far-right think institutes, and public personalities.

One factor is the global development of far-right parties. Such politics are becoming more and more common, as seen by the victory of Donald Trump and the recent political victories of Marine Le Pen in France, the Freedom Party in Austria, and Reform UK.

But even supposedly centrist politicians spread narratives that contribute to Islamophobia and racism. For example, former prime minister David Cameron decried the failure of multiculturalism and this message was repeated by Suella Braverman when she was home secretary.

This perpetuates the idea that it is not possible for different ethnic and religious groups to live in harmony. I would argue this provides an ideal platform for the promotion of Islamophobia.

Mainstream media outlets and social media also shape the narratives that contribute to a culture of fear around Muslims. High profile acts of religious hatred, such as the atrocities committed by Anders Breivik in Oslo in 2011 or by Brenton Tarrant in Christchurch in 2019, tend to be put down to a “lone wolf” or to be regarded as “fringe incidents”, rather than part of a wider problem to be addressed. Both Breivik and Tarrant promoted white supremacy and were explicitly anti-Muslim.

The spread of inaccurate information on social media has stirred up Islamophobia, antisemitism and racism, and led to violence against migrants. This was seen in the far-right riots in summer 2024 following the fatal stabbing of three young girls in Southport, near Liverpool.

According to a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a false name and disinformation suggesting the attacker was Muslim reached around 1.7 billion people across several platforms.

The long history of Islamophobia in Britain can be traced back to the response to the 9/11 terror attacks and the “war on terror”. The UK’s counter-terrorism programme Prevent has made life intolerable for Muslims by promoting the idea that all Muslims are potential terrorists and a threat to security.

The obsession with this approach persists internationally despite the existence of several alternatives, yet it urgently needs to be replaced alongside the thinking that supports it.

The result of all this is that Islamophobia has flourished in the UK without being called out by those in power. This must be challenged if we want to see a reduction in racially and religiously motivated hate crime.