- Conference
- 2023 National Disabled Members' Conference
- Date
- 27 June 2023
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Elevating the offence of assault against the disabled community from an assault to an aggravated assault.
We call upon conference to support the motion to elevate the offence of assault against a member of the disabled community from an assault to an aggravated assault by influencing the government to make changes to the law.
Currently there are five categories that are classed as hate crimes.
• race or ethnicity
• religion or beliefs
• sexual orientation
• disability, and
• transgender identity
Currently only Race and Religion can have an ‘aggravated’ prosecution under the present statute.
These are crimes where there is demonstrated hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity.
Or
Crimes that have been motivated by hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity
Someone can be a victim of more than one type of hate crime.
While a crime may be recorded as a ‘hate crime’, it may only be prosecuted as such if evidence of hostility is submitted as part of the case file.
Hate crimes are personal; they target vulnerable people and send the message ‘You are not welcome.’ they reinforce stereotypes, long term prejudice and patterns of discrimination against certain groups of people and communities.
Currently only perpetrators of crimes which are defined as hate crimes involving religious or racial motivation can be charged with aggravated assault.
Conference we believe that hate crimes involving the disabled community should also have the elevated charge of aggravated assault available to the police service to charge perpetrators of these crimes.
Gov.UK reports
Key results
In year ending March 2022, there were 155,841 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales, an increase of 26% from year ending March 2021 (124,104 offences)
There were 109,843 race hate crimes, 8,730 religious hate crimes, 26,152 sexual orientation hate crimes, 14,242 disability hate crimes and 4,355 transgender hate crimes in year ending March 2022
There were annual increases in all five strands of hate crime, ranging from 19% for race hate crimes to 56% for transgender hate crimes
Sexual orientation hate crimes increased by 41% (to 26,152), disability hate crimes by 43% (to 14,242) and transgender identity hate crimes by 56% (to 4,355); these percentage increases were much higher than seen in recent years
We believe disability hate crimes should be treated equally with parity in the way perpetrators can be charged.
Conference instructs the National Disabled members committee to
1)Raise this issue with the National Executive Council (NEC) and Labour Link
2. Request that the NEC and Labour Link lobby around this unfair issue using the appropriate channels available to them.