FOI 19430-25 - Hate Crimes

Initial Request:

I am requesting daily-level data on Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) incidents, crimes, and related police and court outcomes covering the years 2002 to 2025. The data currently available on data.police.uk is aggregated monthly, but for research purposes, daily data is necessary to analyse the temporal relationship between national football matches and subsequent hate crimes, particularly in relation to players of colour in UK national football teams.

The dataset should include:
Date of each incident or crime,
Type/category of offence,
Outcome of police or court process where applicable,
Location data (if possible within privacy regulations).

Clarified Request:

To clarify, we are requesting data on all hate crimes recorded by your force, not only those related to football matches or players.

Specifically, we are seeking a version of the hate crime data published on https://data.police.uk/data/ that includes the exact day of each event, rather than aggregated monthly.

We do not require data on Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) incidents.

Response:

A search was conducted within Northamptonshire Police’s systems for all occurrences between 1st January 2002 and 8th October 2025 with a prejudice flag, indicating that they were considered hate crimes.

Most of the data retrieved is in the attached spreadsheet. Some data is subject to a Section 30 exemption. See below.

Information on crime recording, including how location is determined, can be found in published government guidance: Crime recording rules for frontline officers and staff

The provided data shows the date each occurrence was created, that is, the date a crime was reported to Northamptonshire Police. This may differ from the date on which an alleged crime happened. Crimes may be recorded as having taken place between times that span multiple days, weeks, months or longer. A victim may be uncertain about when the crime took place. For this reason, Northamptonshire Police cannot give the date on which each crime happened.

Northamptonshire Police changed crime recording systems in March 2016. Many records from before this have been added to the new system, however it is possible that data from before this time is incomplete. Therefore, additional caution should be taken when attempting to interpret this data, which may be misleading.

Northamptonshire Police do not hold information on outcomes of court processes. This information is held by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Northamptonshire Police, when refusing to provide information (because the information is exempt within the provisions of the Act), to provide the applicant with a Notice which:

a) states the fact that an exemption has been applied
b) specifies the exemption in question, and
c) states why the exemption applies (if that would not otherwise be apparent)

Northamptonshire Police cannot provide any further information relevant to this request as the duty under Section 1(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply by virtue of the following exemptions:

Section 30(1)(a) - Investigations and Proceedings Conducted by Public Authorities

This exemption applies because the information you have requested is held or has been held for the purposes of a criminal investigation.

Section 30 is a qualified, class-based exemption, meaning that I am required to conduct a public interest test to balance the legitimate interests of the public in knowing the information against the interests of non-disclosure.

Public Interest Test

Reasons for Disclosure
There is public interest in knowing that the police investigate potential offences, some of which may be serious. This is especially true where the crimes in question are suspected hate crimes. This shows that Northamptonshire Police take their duty to investigate crimes seriously and will increase public confidence and understanding of our work. It will help the public to see how the police use public funds. Research conducted using the disclosed information could help inform public policy to reduce crime and support victims.

Reasons against Disclosure
Information relating to an investigation will only be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act where there is a strong public interest favouring disclosure. Where investigations are active, releasing details may hinder the progress of the investigations and any proceedings arising from it. This would mean that offenders are not brought to justice and the public are placed at greater risk of crime. Disclosing information may make suspects aware that a case is being actively investigated, which would enable them to adapt their behaviour to evade detection. They may take retaliatory action against the victim or another person perceived to have reported the crime and attempt to intimidate potential witnesses. To release any information which could be used to undermine prosecutions, aid offenders to continue to commit crime, or put victims and witnesses in danger of further criminal activity is not in the public interest.
Disclosing sensitive information would suggest that Northamptonshire Police do not take their responsibility to safeguard and appropriately handle information supplied to them as part of investigations seriously. This would undermine the confidence and relationship between the force and the public or other bodies involved in the investigation.
More immediate and likely harms to ongoing investigations and victims must be prioritised over the potential for future good from research outcomes.

Balancing Test
There is a public interest in the disclosure of information to reassure the public that Northamptonshire Police effectively investigate possible crimes and take hate crimes against people with protected characteristics, who may be vulnerable, seriously. However, disclosure of the information would reduce the effectiveness of investigations, allowing criminals to go undetected, and may undermine future proceedings. This would lead to diminishing public confidence, which would lead to fewer members of the public making reports to Northamptonshire Police, which would enable more criminals to go unobstructed and potentially place people at risk. Therefore, it is for these reasons that I believe the balance lies in favour of non-disclosure of the information.

The numerical data presented in this response is an unaudited snapshot of unpublished data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data.

Northamptonshire Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not for the production of statistical information for Freedom of Information responses.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when the data is used.

If you decide to write an article/use the enclosed data, we ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.