In February 2012, Disability Rights UK with the Office for Disability Issues published guidance for local disabled people’s organisations to support them in reporting incidents of hate crime to the police.
In addition, guidance has been produced for carers, friends and families.
Reports of hate crime against disabled people are growing and so are prosecutions, which went up to 579 in 2009-10. However, around half of disabled people say in surveys that they have experienced disability related hate crime or harassment – so there is a major discrepancy between the number of disabled people who have been the victim of disability hate crime and the number of disability hate crimes that have been recorded.
