What follows are extracts from the College of Policing's (2014) Hate crime operational guidance, reproduced with permission from the College of Policing Ltd. Section numbers are as they appear in the guidance.

Legislation

Legislation has provided three specific options to assist in combating hate crime. These are:

• • racially or religiously aggravated offences

• • specific offences that will always be classified as a hate crime

• • enhanced sentencing legislation for any offence.

Note: where a piece of legislation in this section is not applicable to Northern Ireland this is stated. In addition, see 2.3.5 The Criminal Justice (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 2004 for legislation which applies in Northern Ireland only.

Racially or religiously aggravated offences

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (the 1998 Act) introduced racially aggravated offences. The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 amended the 1998 Act to also include religiously aggravated offences.

Sections 29–32 of the 1998 Act identify a number of offences which, if motivated by hostility or where the offender demonstrates hostility, can be treated as racially or religiously aggravated. These offences can be the preferred charge where there is evidence of racial or religious aggravation when committing the offence.

The 1998 Act creates the following racially or religiously aggravated offences:

• • assaults (section 29)

• • criminal damage (section 30)

• • public order offences (section 31)

• • harassment (section 32).

For any other offence where there is evidence that it was motivated by hate, or for any other strand of hate crime, the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] can request enhanced sentencing. For further information see 2.3.4 Enhanced sentencing for other crimes motivated by hostility.

Definitions for racially or religiously aggravated offences

Section 28 of the 1998 Act defines the terms racially aggravated and religiously aggravated.

An offence is racially aggravated if:

• • at the time of committing the offence, or immediately before or after doing so, the offender demonstrates towards the victim of the offence hostility based on the victim's membership (or presumed membership) of a racial group, or

• • the offence is motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility towards members of a racial group based on their membership of that group.