SUE FISH
FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF CONSTABLE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE POLICE
10 September 2020 • 7:00am
Back in 2014, I was asked to categorise misogyny as a hate crime. Citizens UK in Nottingham approached me, as they had undertaken an inquiry and seen a significant trend: women were being victimised simply because of their gender.
They had also found that people were being targeted for a number of different reasons; for instance, being both a Muslim and a woman – and that the police had no way of capturing and recording the underlying motivations for these crimes.
So in 2016, I put my head above the parapet to make misogyny a hate crime in my area. Some people dismissed and denigrated the idea then - and still do now - but four years later, so much is changing. Five forces across the country - North Yorkshire, Avon and Somerset, Northamptonshire, Surrey and Gloucestershire - have now joined us in this endeavour.
But we need to go further. That’s why I am welcoming a new Citizens UK report published this week. They have surveyed more than a thousand people on their experiences of hate crime, and some of the findings are really eye opening. For instance, hate motivated by gender is already a factor in 33.5 per cent of all existing hate crime. 22.4 per cent of incidents are solely motivated by gender - and yet gender is not currently protected under hate crime law.
Among its recommendations, the report advises that hate crimes directed at women because of their gender across all police forces should be recorded, as well as training and greater accountability for institutions, such as transport providers, responsible for safety in public spaces.
Making misogyny a hate crime was one of the simplest tasks I’ve ever undertaken when working in the police. A mere case of delivering training on why we were now capturing gender as a determining factor of hate crime, and making sure the message was disseminated to the public. And the results that we saw were incredible.
Feedback was that women in Nottinghamshire felt much safer, more comfortable, and proud of their area. Some of the responses we had in an evaluation conducted by Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham University told us that women, for the first time, had described themselves as “walking taller” and with their “heads held high.”
We also saw women feeling much more confident to come to the Police to report what had happened to them. We began to see a transformation in their relationship with the force. It is true to say that policing is still predominantly delivered by white, heterosexual men without disabilities, and that policing has, over the years, fallen short in relation to women – particularly around rape and domestic abuse investigations. So, for women to see the police grappling with some of the fundamental issues that women face, day in and day out, and responding positively to it sent a really powerful message to women in Nottinghamshire.
Women grossly under-report what happens to them. So it was really important for us to try and build the confidence that the police will take them seriously. Thanks to the introduction of misogyny as a hate crime, women know they do not have to put up with the abuse that they get every single day.
As a result of our bold action, the Law Commission is now looking at explicitly making misogyny a hate crime as part of its review. Scotland has already reviewed its hate crime legislation and said that the case is made for gender to be classified as a hate crime; and Northern Ireland is reviewing its hate crime legislation, too. A group of MPs is also tabling an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill to help make this a reality.
It feels that in Nottinghamshire we started rolling a small stone down a hill, and it’s now gathering moss. This has the potential to make a huge difference to the lives of all women, and also men. It’s quick, and easy to introduce, and can make an enormous difference. That’s why I need the UK Government to make misogyny a hate crime nationally - because policing shouldn’t just be by postcode.