Understanding Hate Crime for National Hate Crime Awareness Week 2020
National Hate Crime Awareness Week takes place from 10th – 17th October in 2020. Raising awareness and encouraging the reporting of hate crimes and incidents is an important task throughout the year, but we can take the opportunity to highlight the importance of understanding and reporting hate crime.
Hate crime is any criminal offence believed to be motivated by someone’s personal characteristics. It is a hate crime to target someone because of:
- A disability
- Their race or ethnicity
- Their Religion or belief
- Sexual orientation
- Gender identity
Hate crimes can include:
- Abusive or threatening behaviour
- Assault
- Robbery
- Damage to property
- Inciting others to commit hate crimes
- Harassment
Reporting Hate Crime
The vast majority of crimes are not reported to the police. If the police do not know about something, they cannot do anything about it and cannot keep victims safe. By reporting it to the police you may well put a stop to the behaviour and get access to support and advice.
Crimes committed against someone because of their disability, gender-identity, race, religion or belief, or sexual orientation are hate crimes and should be reported to the police. You can get in touch with Northumbria Police online, by calling 101 or if you are in immediate danger, always call 999.
You can report these crimes anonymously by contacting a third party reporting centre such as Crime Stoppers on: 0800 555 111.
Safe Reporting Centres provide a supportive environment for people to report hate crime to the police. Below is a list of Safe Reporting Centres in Sunderland and South Tyneside, you can find a list of Centres across Northumbria here.
| South Tyneside Name of Organisation | Address | Telephone number |
| Action Station South Tyneside Limited | Boldon Lane, south shields NE34 0LZ | 0191 4558122 |
| Arts 4 Wellbeing | 10 Derby Terrace, South Shields NE33 4 PN | 0191 454 4004 |
| CREST | 7 Beach Road, South Shields, NE33 2QA | 0191 427 6611 |
| Autism Able | Westoe Crown Community Hub, Unit R9, Sea Winnings way, NE33 3PE | 07714790964 |
| The One Centre | 2B Stonehills, Pelaw, Gateshead, NE10 0HW | 0191 695 1969 |
| Sunderland Name Of organisation | Address | Phone Number |
| Springboard | The Alec Dickson Centre, Pallion, Sunderland SR4 6AD | 0191 515 5300 |
| Sunderland Mind | Wellbeing Hub, Church Street East, Sunderland SR1 2BB | 0191 565 7218 |
| Space 4 | Houghton Library, Houghton le spring DH4 4GB | 0191 512 0676 |
| Sunderland and County Durham Royal Society for the blind | 53 st Lukes Terrace, Pallion, SR46NF | 0191 567 3939 |
| Headlight | 14 Mary Street, Sunderland, SR1 3NH | 0191 510 1494 |
| ICOS | 14 Foyle St, Sunderland SR1 1LE | 07596538482 |
| Rainbow Family Hub | Washington, Tyne and Wear, NE37 3AE | 0191 561 3995 |
| Winnibell Family Hub | 1-4 Lombard Street, Hendon, Sunderland SR1 2HS. | 0191 561 2850 |
