Question
Hate crimes and political, paramilitary, and criminal group involvement.
1. Of the 880 race hate crimes and 921 sectarian hate crimes recorded in 2022/2023, how many cases in each category involved suspects or persons of interest which had potential or suspected links to paramilitaries, other criminal groups, far right groups or other organised entities?
2. If this information is not recorded will PSNI consider keeping such information going forward in the light of recent events?
Answer
Question 1.
The information requested is not readily available on any police system.
Question 2.
Unlike other crime types where paramilitary/organised criminal gang involvement is evident and follows a well-established pattern, this is not easily identifiable with a hate crime.
Any determination of whether a suspect in a hate crime was actually linked to paramilitary organisation or a criminal/political group would likely become apparent during the investigation (and potentially where information is provided to police) which makes the accuracy of initially recording the involvement in a hate crime questionable and potentially inaccurate and makes recording/deleting at a later stage very challenging
Les Allamby