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Hate crime

Hate crimes or hate incidents can have a significant impact on our tenants, families and communities. It is a priority for us that our tenants feel safe and secure in their home.

We work with colleagues, tenants, neighbourhoods and partner agencies to tackle hate crime by taking a preventative, proactive and person-centred approach.

What is hate crime?

Hate Crime is defined by the Police and Crown Prosecution Service as:

“Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on a person’s disability or perceived disability; race or perceived race; or religion or perceived religion; or sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation or transgender identity or perceived transgender identity.”

We will use this definition when addressing reports of hate-related behaviour.

Reporting hate crime

Hate crimes and incidents should be reported to the Police. We can also take action to support our tenants and their households affected by hate crime or incidents. This could be through additional support, signposting and referrals to partner agencies, or taking enforcement action against perpetrators where evidence supports.

We want our services to be as accessible as possible for all tenants. Tenants affected by ASB and hate incidents or crime, or anyone affected by ASB or hate incidents or crime from one of our tenants, can report it to us in the following ways:

  • In person at our office – our address is Rivers Meet, Cleeve Mill Lane, Newent, Gloucestershire, GL18 1DS. See How to find us.
    • Our opening hours are 8.30am – 5.00pm Monday – Friday, but on a Thursday, we open later at 10.30am. Our office is closed on public holidays.
  • By post – at the address above
  • By email – customerservices@2rh.org.uk
  • By phone – 0800 316 0897
    • When the office is closed, calls will be transferred to our 24/7 out-of-hours service. Please note all calls may be recorded for training and/or monitoring purposes.

What happens when hate crime is reported?

Our safer neighbourhoods or neighbourhood management team will deal with hate crime or hate incident cases.

Following our tenants’ feedback, we no longer categorise hate crime, hate incidents or ASB based solely on the type of behaviour reported. Instead, we focus on the impact that reported behaviour is having on victims and complainants.

We will adopt a harm-based approach when dealing with hate-related behaviour. This will include a combination of professional judgement and our ASB risk assessment framework that takes account of tenants’ and their families circumstances and which other agencies they may be already working with, to assess the impact of the behaviour that is occurring.

When we first receive a report of hate incidents or crime we’ll take details of what happened including:

  • Severity of the incident
  • Duration Time of day
  • Intentionality
  • Frequency
  • Impact on tenant, family or others
  • History of any previous incidents
  • Are there any household needs that would require reasonable adjustments?

When we receive a report of hate crime or ASB we will contact the person who reported it no later than five working days from their initial report being received by us.

We will record the report on our case management system and then we will usually try to arrange a visit so we can discuss concerns face to face. We will gather more information on the nature of the behaviour being reported, and the impact it is having on the victim or complainant. We will use the information to complete a risk assessment to help us to assess appropriate action and support required for the tenant, and their family where necessary.

We will agree an action plan with the complainant which will include:

  • Frequency and preferred method of contact
  • The method of reporting for complainants
  • Action we will take
  • Support required from Two Rivers or referrals to be made to other agencies
  • Action plan review dates
  • Frequency of case review and risk

ASB and Hate Crime Policy

Our Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) and Hate Crime Policy sets out how we will work with our tenants, communities and partner agencies to tackle and prevent ASB and in our neighbourhoods.

This policy applies to all Two Rivers Housing tenants, their household members and visitors.