Twelve forces are already recording gender based hate crime with the NPCC lead encouraging more to follow suit

Campaigners and police leaders, including London Mayor Sadiq Khan, are calling for more forces to start recording misogyny as a hate crime.

The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) is awaiting the results of the Law Commission's review of whether gender based hate should become a specific offence.  

Police Service of Northern Ireland DCC Mark Hamilton is the NPCC Hate Crime Lead

He said misogyny as hate has created concerns from chief officers across the UK around increasing volume of work and bureaucracy

“I think in policing and public sector sometimes we worry about how we make the bureaucracy and the structures to fit the issues,” he told the NPCC/APCC conference last week.

“The challenge now is to agree the issues and then make the structures fit.”

Nottinghamshire’s chief constable Craig Guildford said his force has been recording misogyny as hate crime for five years, and said it gave the public “confidence that cops are taking it seriously”.

CC Guildford says the numbers run in the low hundreds – “not worth worrying about in terms of volumes and administration”.

“I really commend the chief constables who have already taken a step on it,” said DCC Hamilton, “and it hasn’t derailed their crime recording process”.

Nottinghamshire were the first force to start recording hate crimes against women and girls under the ‘misogyny’ tag in April 2016.

The force's newly elected Police and Crime Commissioner Caroline Henry told Police Oracle it had helped people's attitudes to female colleagues internally as well.

Other forces who are already recording misogyny, misandry or gender-based hate crime are North Yorkshire, Avon and Somerset Police, Devon and Cornwall Police, Northamptonshire Police, Gloucestershire Police, Derbyshire Constabulary, West Yorkshire, Surrey Police, Northumbria Police, Leicestershire and Cheshire.

DCC Hamilton said: “It’s going to be an important 12 months from the police service on this.”

“I don’t think we can deny people are waiting for us to make a move on this,” he added.