The States of Jersey Police today released their newest weapon in combatting hate crime – Truvision, an online tool that enables anyone in the community who experiences an hate crime to report it.

Some facts you should know about hate crime –

• Hate crime happens in Jersey;
• Hate crime can happen to anyone not just people from minority groups;
• A hate crime happens where it is perceived that the perpetrator’s hostility or prejudice against any person or property is on the grounds of the victim’s ethnicity (race), sexual orientation, gender identity (including transgender), religion, disability;
• Hate crimes and incidents have one of the highest repeat victimisation rates;
• Hate crime can take many forms including physical assault; criminal damage to property; verbal abuse – name calling; intimidation; harassment;
• The perpetrator of the hate crime doesn’t not have to be right about their reason for hating the victim, e.g. calling a straight person “gay” and beating them up for this misconception is still a hate crime;
• Hate crime does not have to happen to you to report it – you can report a hate crime you have witnessed;
• Hate crime can have a long lasting (longer lasting than other crimes) effect on the mental health of the victim;
• The police take hate crime seriously.

Hate crime is under reported across the UK (including Jersey) for a number of reasons – one of which is that some people are wary of talking to the Police face-to-face or over the phone. Maybe they don’t trust the Police because they had a bad experience in the past or maybe they feel they won’t explain themselves clearly enough to be taken seriously. Truvision addresses this problem.

Truvision allows reports to be made anonymously or you can elect to leave your contact details for a follow up. You can also report a hate crime on behalf of someone else who, perhaps, doesn’t have Internet access or the ability to use a computer. Importantly, if you report a hate crime using Truvision, anonymously or otherwise, your report will be added to the statistics on hate crime in Jersey, giving the Police a much better idea of how widespread the problem is.

To find out more, visit report-it.org.uk/states_of_jersey