Northern Ireland: race hate incidents at new all time high
PSNI report 1411 racist incidents in the year to end of June 2024, 144 higher than for previous 12 months
Race hate crimes now represent almost one in a hundred of all crimes in Northern Ireland
‘Tackling racism and race hate crime in Northern Ireland requires not just a consistent response from police but clear political leadership and effective strategies from the government’ – Patrick Corrigan
Amnesty International has expressed concern at the figures recorded for racist hate crimes and incidents in Northern Ireland. The figures were published in a report today by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), which tracked reported crimes and incidents for the twelve months to the end of June 2024.
The report reveals that there were 1411 racist incidents and 891 racist crimes recorded by the police in the 12 months to the end of June 2024 - the highest figure for race hate incidents since police records began in April 2004. Racist crimes represented 0.9% of all recorded crime during that period. Almost half of recorded race hate incidents and crimes were in Belfast.
Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland Director, said:
“These new figures show that even before the recent orchestrated campaign of racist violence in parts of Northern Ireland, the number of race hate incidents reported to the police was at an all-time high. The fact that racist crimes represent almost one-in-a-hundred of all recorded crimes in Northern Ireland should be a wake-up call to the scale of the problem now facing us.
“For too long, those behind these attacks have felt able to act with impunity, emboldened to carry out further attacks. This has been the depressing backdrop to the recent and ongoing spike in racially-motivated attacks which have left minoritised communities living in fear.
“Tackling racism and race hate crime in Northern Ireland requires not just a consistent response from the police but clear political leadership and effective strategies from the government.”