The March print issue of Professional Security magazine features the recent report by the Community Security Trust (CST) on reported anti-semitic incidents, physical and online. Police have reached an agreement to share hate crime data with the CST and TELL MAMA. The agreement enables the routine sharing of anonymous data. Police will only refer individual details to the CST and TELL MAMA with the express permission of the victim.
Tell Mama and the CST have both committed to ensuring the security and accuracy of the data, meeting standards of data protection. The two bodies were referred to in a recent speech against extremism by the Home Secretary, Theresa May.
Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Policing Lead for Hate Crime, Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said: “It is essential that we have the fullest picture of targeted hate crime so that we can put measures in place to protect victims and bring offenders to justice. In the UK, we have some of the best reporting structures in the world but we know that many crimes are never reported to authorities. It’s vital that we share available data to give us the clearest picture of the extent of hostility.
David Delew, the Chief Executive of the CST said: “CST is proud of our close working partnership with the police across the UK. Our existing data sharing agreements are delivering real benefits for us all in our understanding of hate crime in local areas. This latest development will see those benefits replicated throughout the UK”.
And Fiyaz Mughal, the Chief Executive of Tell MAMA said: “TELL MAMA is developing strong and close working relationships with police forces across the UK. We believe that data sharing agreements form the backbone that will ensure police and TELL MAMA have a good understanding of what’s happening at the local level and are able to pick up trends and respond accordingly.”
The data sharing agreements are available on ‘True Vision’, the Police Hate Crime website: http://www.report-it.org.uk/information_sharing_agreement.
