Hate Crime Victimization in Wales

Abstract

This paper presents findings from the All Wales Hate Crime Project. Most hate crime research has focused on discrete victim types in isolation. For the first time, internationally, this paper examines the psychological and physical impacts of hate crime across seven victim types drawing on quantitative and qualitative data. It contributes to the hate crime debate in two significant ways: (1) it provides the first look at the problem in Wales and (2) it provides the first multi-victim-type analysis of hate crime, showing that impacts are not homogenous across victim groups. The paper provides empirical credibility to the impacts felt by hate crime victims on the margins who have routinely struggled to gain support.

Responding to hate crime: Escalating problems, continued failings

“…When we factor in the vast numbers of hate crimes which are not reported by victims, and those which are reported but which are not taken forward for prosecution, it becomes increasingly difficult to draw any meaningful connections between the numbers of prosecutions and the numbers of hate crimes being committed across the country. The difficulties surrounding interpretations of hostility and motive, and the stringent evidential proof required for prosecutions, have been explored elsewhere (Chakraborti and Garland, 2015; Williams and Tregidga, 2013), and these issues can cause added distress to victims, their families and wider communities.…”

Hate Crimes Against Trans People: Assessing Emotions, Behaviors, and Attitudes Toward Criminal Justice Agencies

“…As with other research on hate crime (see Chakraborti, Garland, & Hardy, 2014), anti-trans abuse is likely to be repetitive in nature. This was illustrated by research conducted in Wales by Williams and Tregidga (2013), 14 who found that 50% of transgender respondents to their hate crime survey had experienced repeat victimization. This finding was reaffirmed during qualitative interviews, with some participants revealing that they suffered from persistent daily abuse (Williams & Tregidga, 2013; see also Perry & Dyck, 2014b).…”

“…This was illustrated by research conducted in Wales by Williams and Tregidga (2013), 14 who found that 50% of transgender respondents to their hate crime survey had experienced repeat victimization. This finding was reaffirmed during qualitative interviews, with some participants revealing that they suffered from persistent daily abuse (Williams & Tregidga, 2013; see also Perry & Dyck, 2014b). Repeated verbal abuse can also frequently escalate into more violent incidents, with one survey by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) in the United States showing that transgender people were 1.58 times more likely to sustain an injury than non-trans victims of hate crime, suggesting that anti-trans hate crime can be particularly violent (NCAVP, 2012; see also FRA, 2014).…”

Enhancing the salience of free speech rights increases differential perceived free speech protections for criminal acts against Black versus White targets

“…In what is known as the “constitutional paradox” (Massaro, , p. 214), legal scholars must reconcile the speakers' right to freedom of expression with the targeted group's right to equal protection from harm under the law (Eberle, ; Wright, ). Whereas some scholars believe that the uniquely and particularly harmful effects of prejudice‐motivated acts (Craig, ; Williams & Tregidga, ) justify the existence of hate crime legislation (Iganski, ; Massaro, ), others believe that enhanced sentencing based on the perpetrator's motives violates the perpetrators' freedom of speech (Cohen, ; Gillespie, ). The present work suggests that the extent to which individuals view expressions of stigmatized group‐targeted acts as protected by the right to free speech or as causing little harm may to some extent reflect their level of prejudice toward the stigmatized group in addition to genuine moral or legal concerns.…”