statistics

LegacyUser

Just curious how many homophobic attacks actually happen. On another thread someone said there was only 60 in all of the North. with 1000000 that is nothing. What are the figures down here for these attacks?

swiss

I don't know. I think there are two major problems with any estimates you might have, such as the one you quoted above. The first is whether any given attack is reported in the first place. The unfortunate truth is that an unknown number of attacks are not reported. The second major problem from what I can tell is whether or not to attribute an attack to the sexuality of the victim. Sure gay people get attacked, mugged and beaten just as straight people do, but whether the motive for that attack was homophobia or just old fashioned thuggery is entirely open to question.

So with all that I don't know how you could get reliable data on this sort of behavior. 60 attacks, while despicable does seem statistically low. I suspect the actual figure is higher but since I have no evidence to prove this one way or the other I can only speculate.

Boston

Couple of points

• Allot of attacks go un-reported
• Of reported attacks, a fair amounth(no idea on numbers) don't get linked to sexual orientation, regards of whether they should or not.
• Straight people get gay bashed, so you have to be specific about what you're looking for.

LegacyUser

Do the Gardaí keep no statistics though?

damien

straight debate wrote:

Just curious how many homophobic attacks actually happen. On another thread someone said there was only 60 in all of the North. with 1000000 that is nothing. What are the figures down here for these attacks?

60? You listen to the radio? Racist or homophobic attacks nightly.

"Only 60" is 60 too many. and it isn't 60 in 1 million but 60 in 100,000 or less. Maybe 50,000. Given that 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 people are gay. 60 people out of a population of 50,000 is a much starker statistic. As has been said a lot of them (maybe most?) go unreported. The usually bull happens with people asserting their latent bigotry by saying things like "Christ, what are they complaining about now? Sure that was nothing. I get abuse like that too when I go out on the town." This does nothing buy wrongfully shame people into not reporting incidents.

As for stats. The PSNI may have stats, the Irish stats would be non-existant I should think. They can't even levy traffic fines down here ffs.

LegacyUser

Still one guy was saying that there were no real gay attacks and another were sayin there were loads. Who is right?

rsynnott

This will be the thread where someone was arguing that gay couples should be forbidden to adopt based on the high incidence of sexuality-related attacks, probably. The person saying there were few was trying to make the point that they're statistically insignificant compared to other risk factors, I think.

Annasopra

Do the Gardaí keep no statistics though?

No

BUT

I do know that the Johnny Group in Dublin did an extensive hate crime survey last year and the results will be launched in the next month or two. I am a member of the group and have read the survey, I can tell you that a substantial number of people surveyed were victims of "hate crime" and that of those victims a substantial number did not report