BBC’s See Hear programme highlights the issue with Hate Crimes against Deaf people

The BBC programme ‘See Hear’ has reported on the shocking increase of hate crime within the disabled and deaf communities. The programme, aired on the 5th September, reported on how incidents of hate crime have risen by a third to more than 80,000 in England and Wales. Over 5,500 of these were disability hate crimes which include attacks on Deaf people.

Featured in the programme was Jane Birkin from Derbyshire Police talking about hate crime research they conducted in conjunction with the British Deaf Association:

“Our experience of hate crime on deaf people has been that deaf people do not report hate crime to us

We did some research a couple of years ago with the British Deaf Association who interviewed 100 people who are BSL users and asked them what a hate crime was. They didn’t really know, and when they explained it to them, most of them had experienced it and nearly all of them hadn’t reported it”

As a result, Derbyshire PLOD (Police Link Officers for people who are Deaf) worked with the BDA to produce 4 videos to show the difference between hate incidents and hate crimes, how to know if it has happened to you, and how to report it.

You can watch the full See Hear episode via BBC’s iPlayer here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bjg2hf/see-hear-series-38-6-hate-crime-deaf-uber

LEAVE A REPLY