By Ben Strang on Radio NZ…
Almost half the hate crimes reported to the police are being wrongly downgraded from a criminal offence, to either “incidents” in which no crime was committed, or to lower level crimes.
Police have published their annual data quality report, which highlights the problems with how the offences are being dealt with.
Hate crimes include racially motivated abuse, violence, threats or intimidation, and the latest figures from police show the majority of staff do not know how to code them.
According to the report published this week, 43 percent of hate crime complaints have been downgraded from what should be classed as a criminal offence.
Often they are called an incident, and not a crime, while a small number are also reduced to a lesser offence…
Read the full article on RNZ here.
