Loretta’s presentation covers the evaluation of the Nottinghamshire police initiative on misogyny as a hate crime and issues arising.

1. On Street Harassment of women and girls in the UK

2. Research Methods
 Mixed-methods approach was deemed to be the most suitable in
order to develop a robust, replicable method, which enabled a
combination of both quantitative and qualitative data to be
analysed.
 On-line survey with 591 respondents and focus groups with
police officers, focus groups and individual interviews with men
and women from general public and interviews with women who
had reported under the scheme
 We had a total of 88 people take part in the focus groups and
interviews. With the survey and focus groups/interviews
combined, we had 679 people participate in the evaluation in
total.

3. Behaviours are a problem for women
 The initial part of the survey was to designed to find out which of the behaviours identified by
Nottinghamshire Police as Misogyny Hate Crime had been experienced or witnessed by
respondents. In total, 93.7% of respondents had either experienced or witnessed street
harassment in the county predominantly in the city
 95.2% of participants who responded to the survey thought that the behaviours included
under the Nottinghamshire Police Policy were a social problem
 90.4% of respondents thought that these types of behaviours area particular problem for
women
 Respondents were then asked whether they thought such behaviour was ‘non-criminal’, ‘anti-
social’ or ‘criminal’ behaviour, 43.3% responded with an ‘anti-social’ categorisation and 51.9%
regarded the behaviour as ‘criminal’, only 4.8% identified it as non-criminal
 When asked about what should be done about this kind of behaviour, 0.8% thought nothing,
as it is not a problem, 3.8% responded that nothing needed to be done as there are criminal
offences already to cover this, 34.8% thought it should be treated as a criminal offence, and the
majority, 45.6%, thought education should be used so people know it is not acceptable (15% of
respondents selected ‘Other’, 0.8% selected nothing as did not see it as a problem)
 These findings complement focus groups and interview data with men and women where
respondents felt that the criminal law and educational interventions should take
implemented.

4. Impact of behaviours (74.9%)

5. Overall Recommendations
 Consideration needs to be given as to whether the policy should be renamed to
‘gender hate crime’ or similar, or whether education about what the terms
‘misogyny’ and ‘hate crime’ mean would be a better approach. This will be a key
part of the Law Commission consultation – so it is important to get views heard
 To address the concerns of the general public not understanding the term
misogyny and in response to it being described as elitist and exclusionary, we
recommend that the general public are educated about what the term
Misogyny entails and what behaviours are covered under the policy otherwise
the Law Commission may go for gendered hate crime
 Additionally, the general public need to be educated about exactly what ‘hate
crime’ is – a focus should be placed on explaining that hate crime involves the
prejudicial targeting of people on the basis of a protected characteristic such as
gender, that it involves an assertion of power over another that is experienced
as hostile behaviour rather than a narrow focus on ‘hate’.

6. Overall Recommendations
 Education is crucial to making the policy a success and to driving behavioural
change. In terms of formal education, this needs to start at an early age and be
embedded in the school system at primary level in PSHE, where the focus
should be on healthy relationships and mutual respect for all. This work should
continue in colleges and universities. employers, schools, colleges and
universities and a range of other organisations
 A broader educational campaign should be delivered by multiple agencies and
by as many different stakeholder groups as possible, at local and national levels,
to bring about sustained societal change
 Intersectionality is crucial to making the policy a success. Bringing in
intersectionality as part of the training to capture different groups who face
different challenges with misogyny hate crime is crucial to ensure the policy
protects different groups equally
 It should be made clear that the majority of men do not engage in these
behaviours and we must involve men on this journey to tackle harassment of
women and girls
 As well as the police, multiple agencies and organisations have an important
role to play in tackling Misogyny Hate Crime