New resources to help understand prejudice motivated crime

Victoria Police have made some new resources to help us understand prejudice motivated crime.

Prejudice or hatred increases the severity of crime. It is an aggravating factor and can occur as part of any crime. It makes crimes more serious because they impact the broader community as well as the specific victim.

Victoria Police takes prejudice motivated crime very seriously.

What is a prejudice motivated crime?

A prejudice motivated crime is any crime motivated by bias or hatred towards a person or a group. This crime would be because of the victim’s actual or perceived characteristic/s.

These might be their:

• religion
• race
• sex
• age
• disability
• sexual identity
• gender identity
• homelessness
• political activity.

It doesn’t matter if the person has one of these characteristics. What matters is the perpetrator is targeting the victim because they believe the victim belongs to a group, which has one of these characteristics.

Reporting to police

Many people do not report prejudice motivated crimes or incidents to police. This makes it difficult for police to investigate and prevent the crimes from recurring. If anyone is in immediate danger, a crime is currently occurring, or you require police attendance please call police on Triple Zero (000).

When there is no immediate danger:

• report property damage motivated by prejudice (including graffiti or vandalism) up to $5000 by submitting an online report
• report property damage motivated by prejudice for items of any value by calling the Police Assistance Line on 131 444
• contact your local police station, or
• submit an anonymous online report through the Crime Stoppers Victoria website or call 1800 333 000.

Find out more at the Victoria Police website.

Information is also available in a variety of languages including:

• Arabic
• Simplified Chinese
• Traditional Chinese
• English
• Hindi
• Korean
• Persian
• Punjabi
• Somali
• Urdu
• Vietnamese