‘Honour-based’ offences fall for first time
So called ‘honour-based’ abuse (HBA) offences in England and Wales have fallen for the first time in four years.
However, the Home Office cautioned that the reduction could be a result of changes made last year to ‘counting rules’ for conduct crimes.
In the year ending March 2024, there were 2,755 HBA-related offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, a decrease of eight per cent from the 3,008 offences in the previous 12 months.
This is the first decrease since the time series began in the year ending March 2020.
In May 2023, changes were made to the Home Office Counting Rules for conduct crimes (stalking, harassment and coercive and controlling behaviour).
“The requirement to record two crimes when one of them was a conduct crime was removed, although police continue to investigate these offences,” said the Home Office.
“For all police recorded crime, this has led to a reduction in offences often associated with conduct crimes, such as malicious communications. While this may have affected the level of HBA-related offences recorded in the last year, it is not clear that this change is the main driver for the fall in these offences.”
Prior to the fall seen in the latest year, there had been a gradual upward trend in the number of HBA-related offences recorded by the police.
The increases in HBA-related offences recorded by the police over the previous few years could be due to several reasons, said the Home Office, including general improvements in crime recording, police improving their identification of what constitutes so-called HBA, and more victims coming forward to report these offences to the police.
However, the Home Office noted there could have been “a genuine increase in these offences”.
Of the 2,755 HBA offences recorded in the latest year, 111 were FGM (female genital mutilation) and 201 forced marriage offences.
Although there was a fall in the overall number of HBA offences over the past year, the number of FGM offences and forced marriage offences increased slightly (by 25 and 28 offences respectively).
More than half (54 per cent/60 offences) of the FGM incidents recorded by the police were reported under the mandatory reporting duty for FGM.
Twenty per cent of HBA-related offences were for controlling and coercive behaviour, 14 per cent for assault with injury and 11 per cent for assault without injury.