Crime and Disabled People Project

This project started in April and continues some of the work previously carried out by the London DDPO Hate Crime Project, which ran from 2018 to 2023.

The issues we all worked on as part of the London DDPO Hate Crime Partnership are still there, and the situation is now worse in terms of funding for specialist hate crime support and with reports like the Baroness Casey Review [link] exposing the horrendous Disablism and discrimination within the Met Police.

We also believe that the issues affecting Disabled victims of hate crime are part of a systemic and institutionalist culture of Disablism across all mainstream services that are part of the Criminal Justice System, so we are sure that many of the barriers and issues faced by Disabled victims of hate crime are actually barriers and issues affecting Disabled people who are in contact with the Criminal Justice System, regardless of the type of crime.

The London DDPO Hate Crime Partnership conducted research and published numerous reports that we know want to use for our campaigns and policy work that now acknowledges the wider implications for Disabled people and crime.

Inclusion London believe that this is a ‘once in a generation’ opportunity with the Met’s push to radically reform based on the Casey Review, to influence real cultural change in how we are policed so we are focusing on London to work with the Metropolitan Police Service, Crown Prosecution Service, London Victim’s Commissioner, and the London Mayor’s Office for Police and Crime.

We will do this by having regular campaign and policy meetings and peer support meetings for DDPO staff working on hate crime.

We will be building a wider evidence base to include how barriers affecting Disabled people experiencing any type of crime can be overcome.

We will be exploring more radical solutions to the current barriers, to include intersectionality issues, recognising that many Disabled victims have multiple protected characteristics that can negatively impact on getting positive outcomes.

Our call to action for DDPOs

We are looking for DDPOs who want to campaign for change in the Criminal Justice System, focusing on combating Disablist practices and discrimination and improving services for Disabled victims of crime in London. Our main areas of work will be to campaign for implementation of recommendations made in our Poor Police Response Report, and our response to the MOPAC Police and Crime Plan, which are:

From our Poor Police Response Report

For Police

  • Reinstate Metropolitan Police Disability Hate Crime Matters Initiative.
  • Make more use of the Metropolitan Police Disability Independent Advisory Group.
  • All Borough Command Units (BCUs) to set up or make use of CPS Multi-agency Scrutiny Panels for hate crime case reviews via Hate Crime Coordinators (HCOPS).
  • Support / set up a Community Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (Community MARAC) in each BCU to deal with high risk and repeat Anti Social Behaviour (ASB) and hate crimes cases and other cases involving adults at risk.
  • To make better use of local DDPOs via Communities Community Alliance To Combat Hate (CATCH) Partnership when responding to Disabled victims.
  • To counter Disablism
    • Specialist Equality Training led by people with lived experience and proactive recruitment of Disabled Police Officers.
    • For recruitment processes to include personality assessments to ensure recruits have the right attitude and values to serve the public and marginalised groups.
  • Identify links between Anti-Social Behaviour / Neighbourhood disputes and hate incidents earlier.
  • HCOPS to make use of Metropolitan Police Service new technology & software to identify hotspots, repeat incidents and link to safeguarding adult referrals and anti-social behaviour reports.

For the Crown Prosecution Service

  • Prosecution of police officers dismissed for gross misconduct when involving Disabled people.
  • Make a public statement and put procedures in place to actively seek prosecution of police officers who have been involved in inappropriate behaviour, exploitation and abuse against Disabled people.
  • The CPS and MPS need to do more work together to understand the negative impact on the community if police officers who have assaulted, exploited or abused a Disabled person do not face criminal proceedings and to look at how those decisions are made and communicated to the Disabled community.

For the Mayor’s Office for Police & Crime (MOPAC)

  • MOPAC commissioners to ringfence part of small grants scheme and fund more localised organisations led by Disabled people to support Disabled victims and raise awareness of hate crime within Disabled community in collaboration with the CATCH Partnership.
  • Work with MPS Deputy Commissioner’s Delivery Group.

For the London Assembly Police & Crime sub-committee

  • Prioritise hate crime against Disabled people to monitor progress and effectiveness of initiatives by MPS to improve reporting of Disability Hate Crime and Disabled victims level of satisfaction with how their cases are dealt with.

Recommendations from our response to the MOPAC Police and Crime Plan

  • Do more to understand our community, with reference to our Abandoned, Forgotten, Ignored Report, using Social Model language when engaging with DDPOs and having a Disability Lead Officer.
  • Combatting Disablism through intersectional research using Public Health Approach on why Disabled people are targeted, by MOPAC’s Behavioural Insights Team
  • Rollout of Disability Equality Training based on Social Model of Disability for all levels of staff
  • Resource capacity building for the London DDPO network of organisations providing holistic support.
  • Do more to engage with our community, making more use of existing community meetings, like the Hate Crime Stakeholder Group, to find out about victims not reporting to authorities.
  • an expansion of the Mayor’s action plan for transparency, accountability, and trust in policing to include intersectional identities and other disproportionately affected groups.
  • to increase visible neighbourhood policing, using data to identify hotspots for disabled people and harassment, cuckooing and would encourage Community Safety Partnerships to include Disabled community representatives.
  • Do more to support victims of repeat hate crime, using new technology to see patterns of so called low level incidents, to prevent escalation into serious offences.
  • Develop a Victims Hub with fully accessible support and services.
  • As many Disabled people, particularly those with learning difficulties are targeted online for fraud, we would welcome input into how support would be offered to those marginalised groups of online fraud.
  • and respond to key consultations and reviews, including the Met Turnaround Plan, now called A new Met for London, and the current MOPAC Victim Services Review.

We will continue to represent Disabled victims of hate crime at key stakeholder meetings. We want to use the data that we have collected already to strengthen and continue the argument for localised specialist support provided by DDPOs. We will call on DDPOs interested in this work to join our online working groups for this year.

Crime and Disabled People Online Working Groups

There are two opportunities to get involved with two online meeting; one focusing on campaigns and policy; and one for peer support for frontline staff involved in supporting Disabled victims of hate crime.

All the meetings are online between 2pm and 4pm. Dates are:

Campaigns and Policy quarterly meetings

This group is for DPDOs interested in looking in-depth at policy issues affecting Disabled victims of crime, to agree on coordinated responses and messaging for MOPAC, CPS and MPS.

  • Thursday 17 August 2023
  • Thursday 15 November 2023
  • Thursday 15 February 2024

HC Peer Support bi-monthly meetings

This group is for DDPO staff directly supporting Disabled victims, either through a advocacy or other types of support. This group is brainstorm on challenging issues getting support and support each other to find solutions; invite experts to come and speak and for Inclusion London to gather information to feed into representation and policy work.

  • Friday 21 July
  • Wednesday 13 September 2023
  • Thursday 23 November 2023
  • Tuesday 23 January 2024
  • Wednesday 20 March 2024

Rollout of training on anti hate crime training materials for DDPOs

We will be offering sessions to look at the new Hate Crime Training Materials that DDPOs can adapt to use in your local area. The sessions are currently in development and will include looking at how to use the materials for social media and raising awareness, running sessions and how to generate income, either through charitable grants or charging local services.