Progress on hate crime reviewed by CJI

CJI has published its review of how hate crime is managed in Northern Ireland.  The review picks up where the original inspection report left off three years ago and reports on the progress made to implement recommendations made in 2007.  View review. View press release.

“This review found that 12 of the 19 recommendations made by the Inspectorate in its initial report had been fully achieved.  We welcome the work that has been undertaken across the criminal justice system to fully complete these recommendations, and commend the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) for achieving the five Inspection recommendations it had specific responsibility for,” said Brendan McGuigan, Deputy Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice in Northern Ireland.

 

“During this inspection review we found some excellent examples of criminal justice agencies, government departments, public bodies and other groups working together to improve the management of hate crime,” said Mr McGuigan.

 

The Deputy Chief Inspector said Inspectors were however disappointed to find that in other areas, progress had been slow and a number of key recommendations had not been achieved.  And he indicated it was concerning that a common definition of what a hate crime is has only recently agreed by the criminal justice system and a hate crime strategy has yet to be developed.

 

“This absence of strategic focus is worrying and has the potential to undermine the progress that has been made in the last three years to reach out to minority groups and victims of hate crime. The importance to hate crime issue cannot be under-estimated and while recorded hate crimes may represent less than two per cent of all recorded crime in Northern Ireland, Inspectors believe hate incidents will continue to provoke public outrange.

 

“It is therefore vital the criminal justice system reacts to such incidents in a pro-active and timely manner,” said the Deputy Chief Inspector.