Islington is often mistakenly thought of as a wealthy Borough full of posh media-types. It is actually one of the UK’s most deprived Boroughs. There is a gap between perception and reality. So it may be with homophobia. Few would think of gay-bashing as a major problem in Islington, with the general belief being that it is a relatively tolerant, easy-going area. But new figures may be shattering that illusion.
New London Met crime statistics show that the Borough has seen a worrying spike in homophobic attacks in the last year. If you compare Islington to the Boroughs on its borders the figures are startling.
In the 12 months ending January 2010 there were 81 homophobic incidents in Islington, compared with 91 in Camden, 71 in Tower Hamlets, 57 in Hackney and 36 in Haringey. Fast forward a year and Islington has seen an increase of more than 50%, with 132 crimes, while statistics for the other Boroughs have remained static or fallen. Haringey has more than halved its figure.
This doesn’t reflect a general trend in the borough. Crime actually fell in Islington year-on-year, so the rise goes against the grain.
There may be some reasons why these figures are not as damning as they suggest. Firstly with relatively small figures like these there is always the chance that these figures are an anomaly, distorted by one or two major events.
Similarly homophobia is like rape and domestic violence in the sense that the number of reported incidents often tells you more about attitudes to crime than the crimes themselves; I bet Iran has very low rates of reported domestic abuse. So Islington’s efforts to encourage reporting of homophobic incidents may be paying off. And it is true that the Borough has been putting a lot of resources into this area, with officers out on the streets only last month to encourage people to come forward to report homophobia.
Speaking last year Mark Sheeran, chief inspector of operations with Islington police, said that higher figures in the reporting of racial abuse and homophobia was a good sign as it showed that people were more confident in reporting them.
But this does not explain these figures as many of these schemes are run by the Metropolitan Police, rather than just in Islington. If it really was these schemes that were making the difference you would expect similar rises in the neighbouring boroughs.
Is Islington really becoming the homophobic capital of London? These figures suggest it might just be.
