Shocking stats re disability hate crime

[amber32002]

www.cps.gov.uk/publications/docs/CPS_hate_crime_report_2008.pdf

Figures from the Crown Prosecution Service about hate crimes and how many convictions resulted for 2007 to 2008.

Nationally (England and Wales), there were 55,294 successful convictions of all hate crime, of which 10,398 were religious or racial hate crime, 778 were homophobic hate crime and only 141 were for disability.

One hundred and forty one successful prosecutions for disability hate crime in England and Wales for the whole of 2007-8?

On average, each police district successfully saw just three such crimes result in a conviction for the whole year, compared to an average of 247 for racial and religious hate crimes per district.

The Minister for Disabilities has just had one of his staff write to me to say that they are confident that the disability discrimination laws are robust and protect people with disabilities in 'all walks of life.' Really? In that case, apparently just about no person anywhere in the country with a disability is ever on the receiving end of verbally abusive or violent behaviour towards them because of the disability. That hasn't been my experience, I have to say. Or are we just finding the laws so impossible that we can't use them?

Opinions?

the police don't take it seriously but we're working with our local force as since April they have had to recognise disability hate crime.
Its taking time though.

can't get pdfs to work on either computer, so that's why I haven't commented. but one thing that concerns me without having had the benefit of the pdf is how far police/CPS are prepared to work with victims who have LDs/communication problems to get the right evidence. and of course how far incidents are being reported to the police in the first place.

www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/180_08.html

is a link that gives some of the statistics. The disability stuff is hidden further down the page and not really commented on.

If you put
CPS disability hate crime
into a search engine, it should take you to the guidelines for how they ask the courts to look after people and take into account any disability stuff. The law for disability crime is supposed to be the same as it is for racial crime. Seems something's going very very wrong indeed. I'm slightly worried that the court document mentions autism but there's no mention of Asperger syndrome, and there should be if they're to tell courts and police how to treat people appropriately. Would the judges know what Asperger syndrome even is?

The NAS yesterday pointed me to a charity called Voice UK www.voiceuk.org.uk/

who are doing some work in helping victims of crime who have a learning disability, so I've contacted them too.