No Space for Hate Program, Held by The National Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups at Highgate Baptist Church, Birmingham, England Courtesy of Adrian Jones, Policy Officer for the National Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups The National Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups held a very successful and well-attended event at Highgate Baptist Church in Birmingham on 15th September, 2017, as the culmination of the National Federation’s “No Space for Hate” project in Birmingham. Speakers included representatives from the Crown Prosecution Service, West Midlands Police, Hertfordshire Gypsy and Traveller Empowerment, Derbyshire Gypsy Liaison Group, Victim Support, Hope Not Hate, Love Your Neighbour, and brap. The event focused on hate crime and what citizens and community members can do to combat it in order to produce communities that are safer, more integrated and better for all those living in them. While the National Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups is a Gypsy, Roma, Traveller-led organisation, this event was for ALL communities as hate crime isn’t restricted by ethnic boundaries. This project, which brought people from different ethnic and faith communities together, is one which the National Federation intends to build. Photographs below show the art installation on the Holocaust and present day Hate Crime by young local artist, Chantelle Boyle, as well as a section of the program’s audience. Highlights from the event: The event took the form of a hate crime “journey,” from identifying what exactly “hate crime” is and what forms it can take, the importance of good community relations for all, how to report hate crime, the support that is available for victims, legal actions that can be taken against perpetrators and how communities can work together to stop hate crime. Lack of reporting of hate crime can be a particular problem. For example, data from GATE [Gypsy and Traveller Empowerment] Herts and the Report Racism GRT website (about which more below) shows that 92 of the 117 (79%) people reporting a hate crime on the website had not reported the incident to the Police). This reluctance to report via “official” channels can have a number of causes, including: Hate crime can be “normalised” – people can become so used to it happening that it becomes the norm, just part of everyday life. More than a quarter of those reporting a hate crime to the Report Racism GRT website hadn’t reported it to the Police because the “incident is too common and occurrence to report” Communities can lack trust in the “authorities” and therefore be concerned with what might happen to them if they report a hate crime– this could be because of past experiences of dealing with (for example) the Police, either in their country of origin (if they are from another country) or in the UK Communities can feel that there is no sense in reporting hate crime as nothing will be done about it – this was the case with more than a third of those reporting a hate crime on the Report Racism GRT website People can feel that there might be reprisals from the perpetrator People can feel ashamed or embarrassed about reporting an incident People can simply not know how to report a hate crime Lack of reporting has the effect of making hate crime against some communities less visible in terms of its appearing in official figures. It isn’t the case that these communities aren’t experiencing hate crime but rather that they don’t report it when it happens. As Adrian Jones noted at the event, he was told by a Police Officer in Cleveland that they are sure that the Gypsy/Traveller community experiences hate crime although this doesn’t appear in their hate crime statistics as no one ever reports it to them. What then can be done to improve this situation? Using local community organisations as “third party reporting centres” is one strategy that has had some success. The limitations of this method are that where people live in isolation (i.e. there are few members of their community in their area), which can make them more likely to be the victim of a hate crime, they are less likely to have a TPRC to which they can turn. The True Vision website enables people to report hate crime on-line, as well as detailing other ways of reporting. While it’s a good initiative it too has some limitations. For example, the on-line reporting element is hard to negotiate if you have limited literacy, limited command of English and/or limited experience of navigating websites. Also, as an “Official” website there can be concerns (as above) regarding what will be done with the data. Community-based websites (such as GATE Herts’s “Report Racism, Gypsy, Roma, Traveller”) can play a vital role in encouraging victims to come forward. They have the advantage of being community-based, well-known and well-publicised through the community, designed for the relevant community (e.g. use of community language/s) and seen as being independent of official bodies Adrian Jones Adrian Jones has worked as Policy Officer for the the National Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups since 2014, working on local, national and European policy development. He previously worked in public sector policy (especially with regards to housing and equalities) for the London Borough of Ealing and Reading and Slough Borough Councils. A former MORI Research Executive he has also been a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick and a Lecturer at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham as well as working as Principal Research Officer for the Ethnic Minority Foundation/Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations. He has carried out extensive research with Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities in Birmingham and has worked closely with Highgate Baptist Church on a number of projects involving both the Church’s congregation and the wider local community.
