FOI reference: FOI-2025-2680
You asked
I would like access to the following data:
- The number of recorded hate crime incidents in Colchester (broken down by age groups, particularly 11-16) over the last five years.
- The number of reports of bullying and discrimination in schools in Colchester.
- Any initiatives or policies in place to tackle discrimination, bullying, and hate crime in Colchester’s youth community.
We said
Thank you for your request.
The Home Office publish data on hate crime in England and Wales from a range of sources. The latest release was published in November 2023, which may be of some interest for question 1. Should you have any questions, they may be able to assist you further and can be contacted via crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gov.uk.
We produce crime data published from two sources; the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and police recorded crime. The CSEW is a victimisation survey capturing experiences of crime from people aged 16 and over living in private households. Households with children aged 10 to 15 years are also invited to take part in a shorter version of the survey. Police recorded crime covers all offences that are reported to and recorded by the police.
In March 2024, we published estimates of bullying and online experiences among children in England and Wales using data from the 10- to 15-year-olds’ Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) for the year ending March 2023. The bullying among children tables provide a breakdown of the prevalence and nature of bullying experienced, which may be of interest. Whilst the information collected for this output does ask school-age children about their experiences of bullying, we do not ask if these happened in schools in a particular location. We therefore do not hold the information requested for question 2.
Unfortunately, we do not hold information in scope of question 3, as we are not responsible for policies or initiatives. The Home Office or Department for Education may be able to assist further with this query.
If you have any other crime-related queries in future, please email crimestatistics@ons.gov.uk and we will endeavour to help.