The Zhoosh! Brighton Blog
Will social media help against hate crime?
So, Sussex Police have taken to Twitter and made friends with Facebook. But will this help with hate crime?
For very obvious historical reasons there’s a lot of distrust from within our community of the police. We’re only a generation away from sexual relations between males being a criminal offence – the thought of reporting a crime carried out against you because of your sexuality to someone who once could have arrested you for it is for some a shift too far. There’s a fear, too, of putting your head above the parapet and becoming “known” – do you really want to make yourself visible to the police?
I have absolutely no doubt that we live in ‘the Brighton bubble’ – a fabulous enclave where pretty much anything goes and frequently does – but that’s no reason for smugness. There’s no shortage of places with a BN-postcode where your choice of person to hold hands with will result in staring and name-calling at best, and potentially something much worse. Even within the Brighton bubble people are going to hate and fear you for who choose to be with – and some will express that hatred and fear through words and violence.
Yes, the relationship between us and the police is not historically a great and glorious one – but the laws have changed and attitudes are changing too. YouGov research has shown that 1 in 5 gay people have experienced a homophobic hate crime in the last three years – but three quarters of those incidents weren’t reported. If we don’t flag these things and report them, the square root of sod-all is going to happen to investigate them. There’s been a bit of a sniffy attitude in the press towards the possibility of reporting crime on Facebook/Twitter, but I think this could be a real opportunity for us to report things as and when they happen and could also help the police build a picture of where there might be areas of concern. Frankly, if we don’t report incidents – and we should be reporting everything, not just the serious physical assaults – how are the police to know what’s going on? We need to take a bit of collective responsibility and decide that we’ll use every channel available to get our voices heard. Don’t let apathy win.
Need to report something? http://www.report-it.org.uk/homophobic_and_transphobic_hate_crime
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To report all homophobic and transphobic incidents, contact Sussex Police on 01273 665657.
Sussex Police LGBT Liaison Officer is PC Rachel Piggott, supported by PC Rich Bridger. Both Rachel and Rich are part of the Neighbourhood Policing Team for the Kemptown area. The LGBT Team operates from John Street Police Station in Brighton and is led by Sgt Alex Evans.
You can find out more about them and their activities on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brighton-and-Hove-LGBT-Team/194767553890462 and Twitter @PoliceLGBT
