A total of 145,214 offences were recorded in the two nations in the year ending March 2023, down 5% from 153,536 in the previous 12 months, the Home Office said.
The total had previously risen every year since comparable data began in 2012/13.
The Government has noted that the fall coincided with new policing guidance which it said “may have led to greater scrutiny of the threshold of what constitutes a criminal offence of public fear, alarm or distress”.
There were 101,906 race hate crimes, down 6% from the previous year (108,476).
But religious hate crimes were up by 9% to 9,387 offences, while transgender hate crimes increased by 11%, to 4,732 offences.
The most commonly targeted group when it came to religious hate crime were Muslims, accounting for 39% of religious hate crime offences. This was followed by Jewish people, who were targeted in 17% of religious hate crimes, followed by Christian (7%), Hindu and Sikh (both 3%).
In 22% of these offences the targeted religion was not known.
LGBTQ+ group Stonewall criticised political leaders for not having acted “seriously or quickly enough” against hate crime, adding that “many of them are filling the public domain with toxic language that dehumanises LGBTQ+ people”.
The Home Office said the rise in transgender hate crime may be down to such issues being “heavily discussed by politicians, the media and on social media over the last year” but also gave increased awareness in the police in the identification and recording of these crimes as a possible reason.
But Victim Support said “falling public trust in the police is a real issue” and suggested this may have contributed to the overall fall in the number of police-recorded hate crimes.
Becca Rosenthal, national hate crime lead at the charity, said: “Those we support increasingly tell us that they are reluctant to approach the police, so these figures could simply…
Read the full article here