Statistics on so called ‘honour-based’ abuse offences, England and Wales, 2021 to 2022
Published 20 October 2022
Applies to England and Wales
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statistics-on-so-called-honour-based-abuse-offences-england-and-wales-2021-to-2022/statistics-on-so-called-honour-based-abuse-offences-england-and-wales-2021-to-2022
Frequency of release: Annual
Forthcoming release: Home Office statistics release calendar
Home Office responsible statistician: John Flatley
Press enquires: pressoffice@homeoffice.gov.uk, Telephone: 0300 123 3535
Public enquires: crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gov.uk
This release contains statistics about so called ‘honour-based’ abuse (HBA) related offences and incidents recorded by the police in England and Wales.
1. Introduction
This publication provides information on the number of police recorded offences which were identified as being so called ‘honour-based’ abuse (HBA)-related. These data have been collected by the Home Office from police forces in England and Wales on a mandatory basis since April 2019 and have been published for the third time. The data have been published to shine a light on the level of these offences dealt with by the police and to encourage other victims to come forward and report these offences to the police.
So called HBA-related crimes for the purposes of this collection follow the police and Crown Prosecution Service definition:
an incident or crime involving violence, threats of violence, intimidation, coercion or abuse (including psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional abuse) which has or may have been committed to protect or defend the honour of an individual, family and/or community for alleged or perceived breaches of the family and/or community’s code of behaviour.
Further information on HBA can be found on the Crown Prosecution Service website.
The collection includes, but is not limited to, crimes of forced marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM). Where a forced marriage or FGM offence is recorded by the police, it should always be tagged on their Record Management System, with an HBA identifier. The collection also identifies the number of FGM offences that have been reported to and recorded by the police following a referral via the FGM Mandatory Reporting Duty. This requires regulated health and social care professionals and teachers in England and Wales to report known cases of FGM in under 18-year-olds to the police. The FGM duty came into force on 31 October 2015.
Any other notifiable offence can also be marked as being HBA-related by the police. The types of offences identified as being HBA-related are shown in the Key Results section.
As with all police recorded crime figures, these data only cover offences that were reported to and recorded by the police. It is recognised that HBA is a hidden crime and victims can be reluctant to bring them to the attention of police or other authorities. These data, therefore, are likely to only represent a small proportion of the actual HBA offences committed in year ending March 2022.
Also published this year for the first time are the number of HBA-related incidents that have not resulted in the recording of a notifiable crime.
2. Key results
In the year ending March 2022, there were 2,887 HBA-related offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. This was an increase of 6 per cent compared with the year ending March 2021 (when there were 2,725 offences).
Increases in HBA-related offences recorded by the police over the last year could be due to several reasons, including:
- general improvements in crime recording
- the police improving their identification of what constitutes so-called HBA
- more victims coming forward to report these offences to the police
- a genuine increase in these offences
This was the second consecutive rise in HBA related offences (excluding GMP [footnote 1]), although the latest increase was lower than the previous year (6% vs 18%).
As there may be several reasons for the increase in these offences, caution is urged in interpreting the rise in these crimes.
Of the 2,887 HBA offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales in the year ending March 2022, there were 77 FGM and 141 forced marriage offences.
Table 1: Offences involving so called ‘honour-based’ abuse recorded by the police in England and Wales, year ending March 2022
| All HBA-related offences | FGM offences | Forced marriage offences | Other HBA-related tagged offences | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales | 2,887 | 77 | 141 | 2,669 |
Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office
Over half (52%; 44 offences) of the FGM offences recorded by the police were reported under the mandatory reporting duty for FGM.
In the year ending March 2022, 17 per cent of HBA-related offences were for controlling and coercive behaviour, 14 per cent for assault with injury and 14 per cent for assault without injury. There was a slight increase in the proportion of controlling and coercive behaviour offences, from 14 per cent to 17 per cent compared with the previous year. All other offences were in similar proportions to the previous year. Other offences are shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Proportion of offences involving so called ‘honour-based’ abuse recorded by the police, by offence category, England and Wales, year ending March 20221
| Offence code | Offence category | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 8U | Controlling and coercive behaviour | 17 |
| 8N | Assault with injury | 14 |
| 105A | Assault without injury | 14 |
| 3B | Threats to kill | 9 |
| 8R | Malicious Communications | 8 |
| 19C | Rape of a female aged 16 and over | 6 |
| 36 | Kidnapping | 6 |
| 8Q | Stalking | 6 |
| 8L | Harassment | 5 |
| 11A | Cruelty to children/young persons | 2 |
| 9A | Public fear, alarm or distress | 1 |
| All other offences | 11 | |
| Total | 100 |
Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office
- Numbers may not sum to 100 due to rounding
A breakdown of the number of HBA-related offences recorded within each Police Force Area (PFA) is provided in Table 4 in the tables published alongside this release. Data at the PFA level need to be interpreted with caution as the volume of these offences was relatively low in some PFAs and, as such, will be subject to a degree of fluctuation from year-to-year.
Published this year for the first time are the number of HBA-related incidents that have not resulted in the recording of a notifiable crime. These will cover incidents where the police may have been alerted to a possible HBA-related offence but there was not sufficient information to warrant the recording of a crime. In the year ending March 2022, there were 1,871 HBA-related incidents recorded by the police.
3. Data quality
While police forces have been asked to confirm the accuracy of the statistics in this release, the Home Office are aware of a number of data quality issues.
It is known that for some police forces, the identification of crimes as HBA-related relies on a police officer or other member of police staff remembering to correctly apply the HBA-related identifier to an offence on their Record Management System. Such identifiers are not always correctly applied. There may be some crimes that forces manage as being HBA-related but have not been identified as such in the data return to the Home Office.
Forces either supplied record-level data via the Home Office Data Hub (HODH) or an aggregate data manual return. For forces who supplied data to the HODH, the Home Office extracts the number of offences for each force which have been identified by forces as being HBA-related. Therefore, counts of HBA via the HODH are dependent on the identifier being correctly applied for each respective offence.
In the manual return, police forces submit a quarterly spreadsheet containing a count of HBA-related offences and the number of FGM and forced marriage offences.
At the end of the financial year, the Home Office carried out a series of quality assurance checks on the HBA data collected from the police forces (either by the aggregate return or via the HODH).
These include checks:
- for any large or unusual numbers of HBA-related offences across forces
- that FGM and forced marriage offences were identified correctly
- that the type of offences identified as HBA-related seemed plausible
Police forces are then asked to investigate any issues and either provide an explanation or resubmit figures. Once these issues are addressed, the data are then tabulated and sent back to forces for them to verify. At this stage, they are asked to confirm in writing that the data they submitted are correct and if they are not, then they have the opportunity to revise their figures.
Home Office statisticians will continue to work with police forces to improve the data quality of this collection.
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Greater Manchester Police were unable to provide data for year ending March 2020 following the implementation of a new IT system in July 2019. ↩