Police officer perspectives on the use of risk assessments to improve response to hate crime victims

• In Event: Intersecting Injustices: Police Brutality, Organized Crime, and Forced Displacement

Abstract

Risk assessments (RAs), tools designed to assess a victim’s risk of potential future victimisation, have been in use in policing for some time now. In particular, they have been used in domestic violence cases to assist police in determining levels of immediate risk to the victim as well as risk of potential future harm. These tools have been useful in assisting police with not only determining the type of resources necessary for safekeeping, but in conveying to police the gravity and seriousness of the harm. While RAs have proven useful in improving police response in domestic violence case, RAs have so far not been used extensively in the area of hate crime response.  Drawing on interviews with police officers participating in a pilot project in Nottingham England where RA were used in hate crime incidents, this paper argues that these tools have great potential to vastly improve on-the-ground police response to hate crime victims and to assist with deepening police officer understandings of the harms of hate which is key to ensuring good response. Given the current landscape of escalating rates of hate crime, low levels of confidence in police, and dissatisfaction among hate crime victims, the use of RAs is particularly timely.

Authors

• Loretta Faye Trickett, Nottingham Trent University

• Timothy Bryan, University of Toronto