Half a story? Muslim victimisation

A new study based on data from the Crime Survey of England and Wales suggests that British Muslims are not as affected by violent crime nor as disapproving of the police as previously thought, reports The Independent.

The research carried out by Julian Hargreaves questions the methods traditionally used to analyse the victimisation of Muslims. He said the overuse of qualitative methodologies using unrepresentative samples prevents the scope and extent of these issues from being uncovered.

Hargreaves also drew attention to the limitations of the Crime Survey in identifying Muslim victimisation, adding:

'Much more research is needed to complete the criminological picture in this area, including large-scale data concerning damage to property such as mosques and small businesses. There is also a need for research to focus more often on 'everyday' hate crime, such as verbal abuse from strangers, which often goes unreported to both the police and the Crime Survey.' 

Read the full article in the British Journal of Criminology.