Ethnicity and victimisation

Question 1

overview

Answer 1

Racist victimisation occurs when an individual is selected as a target because of their race, ethnicity or religion. According to the UK government, there has been an increase in hate crimes in recent years. There are also documented sharp rises in race & religious hate crimes after incidents such as the murder of Lee Rigby in May 2013 & any widely publicised terrorist incidents such as the Paris attacks in November 2015 and this is a growing issue in the UK & worldwide.

The Home Office report shows there were increases in racially or religiously aggravated offences in the lead up to & immediately following the EU Referendum in 2016 & following the Westminster Bridge attack in March 2017.

Question 2

evidence

Answer 2

In 2020, the Asian ethnic group (2%) were significantly less likely than the White ethnic group (4%) to be victims of a personal crime, whilst the Mixed ethnic group (7%) were significantly more likely. Since 2015/16 there have been statistically significant decreases in reports of victims of crimes seen in the Black (from 7 to 4%) and Asian (from 4 to 2%) ethnic groups.
Between 2017/18 and 2019/20, almost half (49%) of homicide victims aged 15 to 17 and 37% of victims aged 18 to 20 were from the Black ethnic group. During this three-year period, 38% of Black homicide victims were of age 20 or younger; 13% of White, 24% of Asian and 33% of Other ethnicity homicide victims were in this age group.

Question 3

factors affecting victimisation

Answer 3

The differences may be partly the result of factors other than ethnicity. E.g. for violent crime, factors such as being young, male & unemployed are strongly linked with victimisation. Ethnic groups with a high proportion of young males (e.g. black & mixed-ethnic communities) are therefore likely to have higher rates of victimisation. When the relative contribution of a number of different factors are examined, although ethnicity was independently associated with a risk of violence, it was less important than other factors such as age, sex & marital status (Flatley et al, 2010).