The Office for Public Management published two excellent pieces on disability hate crime during Learning Disability Week.
The first provides a really useful overview of the key issues associated with hate crime, whilst the second is an overview of new research they’ve published on behalf of Mencap on how police forces tackle hate crime against people with a learning disability.
The latter, Don’t Stand By (pdf), is an excellent report. Two findings in particular stood out for me.
The first is that the police feel that people most typically report disability hate crime directly to the police. However, disabled people themselves tend to turn towards other people or organisations with whom they already have a trusting relationship.
The second is that there is little consistency in the structures difference police services have in place to tackle disability hate crime, some to the point where there is no hate crime officer or hate crime unit in place.
My own organisation carried out significant research into the area of disability hate crime in Essex and found very similar issues.
That, really, is the point: what’s needed to be done to address disability hate crime isn’t unknown; it’s the doing something about it that is the problem.
(Disclosure: I know OPM well and have many friends who work there and who were involved in writing this report.)
arbitrary constant 
Rich, thanks for such a complimentary post about OPM’s disability hate crime work. We are passionate about these issues, and as you said, it must be about putting the evidence into practice. By working together, we can move faster, and we must never stop believing that we can make things better.
My pleasure, Chih Hoong. I couldn’t agree more.