Racist and homophobic harassment and violence have emerged as problems of disturbing proportions in England and Wales. Even though homophobic violence has not attracted the same level of public scrutiny as racist violence, there is ample evidence to suggest that the gay and lesbian community is also the recipient of similar kinds of hate crime. Results of a study are presented that examined complaints of harassment recorded by the Metropolitan Police to examine the nature of the relationship between the victim and perpetrator in both racist and homophobic harassment. The study’s objectives were to first compile a profile of the patterns of behavior which prompt people to report an allegation of racial or homophobic harassment and secondly, to consider what these patterns tell us about harassment as a form of hate crime. Several broad conclusions could be made about racial and homophobic harassment. Significantly, reports of racial harassment and homophobic harassment are very similar to each other and demonstrate the following characteristics: (1) a large proportion of victims appear to be the sole recipient of the harassment and to be between 31 and 50 years of age; (2) in terms of suspects, most incidents appear to involve one or two individuals who are twice as likely to be male as female; and (3) in relation to incident characteristics, it is possible to say the majority of harassment takes place between 12 pm and 12 am, approximately half of the incidents are ongoing, close to one-third include some form of threat to the victim, incidents take place near or in the vicinity of the victim’s home, and in most cases the victim believes the suspect to be a neighbor or someone local. References