No Place for Hate Crime - National Union of Students

Profiles of incidents and perpetrators
Table 6 Ethnicity of perpetrator(s)
Sexual orientation
Gender identity
Single
Multiple
Single
Multiple
perpetrator
perpetrators
perpetrator
perpetrators
White 66% 82% 62% 66%
Black 6% 14% 10% 13%
Asian 3% 14% 8% 16%
Chinese 0% 2% 1% 1%
Don't know 24% 10% 19% 18%
Another 1% 2% 0.4% 2%
This is in line with existing research in both the UK
and the US, where “the bulk of reported attacks are
perpetrated by male assailants, usually juveniles or
young people in groups, who are not known by the
victim.” 22 The London Metropolitan Police conducted
a study of allegations of racial and homophobic
harassment, which found that there was almost double
the number of incidents involving male suspects than
incidents involving female suspects. 23 Moreover, the
Crown Prosecution Service records that in 2008–09 the
proportion of male defendants was 87 per cent, though
this figure is slightly lower than for 2007–08, which was
90 per cent. 24
negligible. The majority of perpetrators were also male,
a finding consistent with crime profiles in general and
homophobic incidents in particular. A study of gender
gaps in heterosexuals’ attitudes towards lesbians
and gays in the United States found that “aggregate
attitudes tend to be more hostile towards gay men than
lesbians … women generally hold more favourable and
less condemning attitudes towards gay people … [and]
where heterosexuals tend to express more negative
attitudes towards gay people of their same sex, this
pattern occurs mainly among men.” 25
As discussed in Chapter 3, victimisation rates
varied in relation to the victim’s sexual orientation.
Male gay students surveyed experienced higher
rates of victimisation than students of any other
sexual orientation in every incident category except
vandalism, property damage and theft, where lesbians
were the most victimised. Even then, the difference
in victimisation between lesbians and gays was
39