Official Statistics

Statistics on so called ‘honour-based’ abuse offences, England and Wales, 2022 to 2023

Published 19 October 2023

Applies to England and Wales

Frequency of release: Annual

Forthcoming release: Home Office statistics release calendar

Home Office responsible statistician: John Flatley

Press enquires: 0300 123 3535

Public enquires: [email protected]

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-related. This data has been collected by the Home Office from police forces in England and Wales on a mandatory basis since April 2019. Data for Devon and Cornwall Police has not been included in this bulletin as they have been unable to supply data following the implementation of a new IT system in November 2022.

The data has 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 offences and incidents, 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 those aged 17 and under to the police. The FGM duty came into force on 31 October 2015.

Any other notifiable offence^{[footnote 1]} 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 below.

As with all police recorded crime figures, this 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. This data, therefore, is likely to only represent a proportion of the actual HBA offences committed in the year ending March 2023.

Also published are the number of HBA-related incidents that have not resulted in the recording of a notifiable crime. An example of a HBA-related incident could include where a neighbour or other third party reports suspected HBA, but upon attending the incident (or after investigation), the police could not substantiate the report. In this circumstance, this would remain as a HBA-related incident.

2. Key results

In the year ending March 2023, there were 2,905 HBA-related offences recorded by the police in England and Wales (excluding Devon and Cornwall), a slight increase of 1% compared with the year ending March 2022 (when there were 2,871 offences).

Table 1: Offences involving so called ‘honour-based’ abuse recorded by the police in England and Wales, excluding Devon and Cornwall, year ending March 2023

	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	% change 2021/22 to 2022/23
All HBA offences	2,642	2,871	2,905	1

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office

Notes:

1. Figures exclude Devon and Cornwall Police.

There has been an upward trend in the number of HBA-related offences since the Home Office began collecting data on a mandatory basis in the year ending March 2020. Trend data in figure 1 excludes Greater Manchester Police, who were unable to supply data for the year ending March 2020, and Devon and Cornwall Police, who were unable to supply data for the year ending March 2023.

Figure 1: Offences involving so called ‘honour-based’ abuse recorded by the police in England and Wales, excluding Greater Manchester Police and Devon and Cornwall police, year ending March 2020 to year ending March 2023

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office

Notes:

1. Figures exclude Greater Manchester Police who were unable to supply data for year ending March 2020.
2. Figures exclude Devon and Cornwall police who were unable to supply data for year ending March 2023.

The increases in HBA-related offences recorded by the police over the last few years 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

As there may be several reasons for the increase in these offences, caution is urged in interpreting the rise in these crimes.

Of the 2,905 HBA offences, 84 were FGM and 172 forced marriage offences. One-third (33%; 28 offences) of the FGM offences recorded by the police were reported under the mandatory reporting duty for FGM.

Table 2: Offences involving so called ‘honour-based’ abuse recorded by the police in England and Wales, excluding Devon and Cornwall, year ending March 2023

	All HBA-related offences	FGM offences	Forced marriage offences	Other HBA-related tagged offences
England and Wales	2,905	84	172	2,649

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office

Notes:

1. Figures exclude Devon and Cornwall Police.

In the year ending March 2023, 19% of HBA-related offences were for controlling and coercive behaviour, 16% for assault with injury and 12% for assault without injury. Other offences are shown in figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Proportion of offences involving so called ‘honour-based’ abuse recorded by the police, by offence category, England and Wales, excluding Devon and Cornwall, year ending March 2023

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office

Notes:

1. Figures exclude Devon and Cornwall Police.
2. Numbers may not sum to 100 due to rounding.

HBA incidents

In the year ending March 2023, there were 2,018 HBA-related incidents recorded by the police in England and Wales (excluding Devon and Cornwall), an increase of 10% compared with the previous year (up 151 from 1,830). These cover incidents reported to the police that, following investigation, do not amount to an offence according to the National Crime Recording Standard. This is the second time this data has been published.

HBA by Police Force Area

Published this year for the first time are the number of HBA-related incidents by Police Force Area (PFA). Data at the PFA level needs 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. Also, PFAs vary in size and demographic composition, therefore we would expect variation between them in any year.

For the year ending March 2023, the Metropolitan Police recorded the highest number of both HBA offences and incidents; 15% or 440 of total recorded offences and 18% or 369 of total recorded incidents.

A breakdown of the number of HBA-related offences and incidents recorded within each PFA are provided in the Statistics on so called ‘honour-based’ abuse offences, England and Wales, 2022 to 2023: data tables; table 5 and table 6, published alongside this release.

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 several 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
• large numerical changes by force between years
• 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 is 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 is correct and, if it is 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.

1. Notifiable offences cover those that could possibly be tried by a jury (these include some less serious offences, such as minor theft, that would not usually be dealt with in this way) plus a few additional closely related offences, such as assault without injury. ↩