Northern Ireland race crime incidents at an all time high, PSNI figures show

New figures from the PSNI show that more than eight hate-motivated incidents or crimes were reported to police every day in the 12 months from March 2023 to 2024.

The figures, published in a report on May 16 by the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, show there were 1,353 racist incidents and 839 racist crimes reported during that time period.

This is the highest figure for race hate incidents since police records began in 2004/05, with almost half of recorded incidents in Belfast.

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In addition to this, the last year saw 1,091 sectarian incidents and 730 sectarian crimes reported to the police, as well as 452 incidents and 282 crimes with homophobic or transphobic motivation. The number of reported racially-motivated hate incidents in Northern Ireland has exceeded the number of sectarian incidents since 2016/17.

Amnesty International has expressed concern at the new figures, with the organisation's Northern Ireland Director, Patrick Corrigan, calling for a "zero tolerance approach" to racist and other hate-motivated crime.

He said: "The rate of incidents motivated by racism now outstrip those motivated by sectarianism, despite the relatively small numbers of people in Northern Ireland from ethnic minority backgrounds. That means that a member of an ethnic minority community is vastly more likely to be a victim of hate crime.

"We need a zero tolerance approach to racist and other hate-motivated crime in Northern Ireland. Yet that is not what victims of these crimes see, with all too few offenders held to account.”

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