Why make ‘hate’ a crime?

Abstract

Speci.c offences of racially aggravated crimes were established in Britain by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. A number of offences with a racial aggravation now attract a higher penalty than those without. The United States has a long experience of similar legislation. But critics of so-called ëhate crimeí laws in the US argue that the legislation has failed to ful.ll expectations. It is therefore timely to ask what are the objectives behind the legislation in Britain, and what are the prospects for achieving them? This article argues that the most signi.cant impact of the legislation is likely to be on the criminal justice agencies expected to deal with racially aggravated crime.

Tourism and sentencing: Establishing informal status privileges

“…In Britain the process began with the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (CDA), which introduced a range of enhanced penalties for racially aggravated crime (Iganski, 1999). The anti-hate measures introduced in the CDA 1998, were not subject to the same level of argument that had been provoked in the USA (Iganski, 1999(Iganski, , 2002. Nevertheless, they have since aroused a fairly developed discussion about their value or otherwise.…”

“…Thirdly, that they encourage the Criminal Justice System to respond to these crimes more effectively; particularly in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence case (Iganski, 1999). Again this would be equally relevant to tourist-related crime.…”

The challenge of working with racially motivated offenders: An exercise in ambivalence?

“…There is a vast and growing body of research dedicated to a wide array of issues and topics in and around the wider area of hate crime: for example, Bell (2002), Hall (2005), Iganski (1999aIganski ( , 1999bIganski ( , 2002, Iganski et al (2005), Jacobs and Potter (1998), Jenness and Broad (1997), McGhee (2003aMcGhee ( , 2004McGhee ( , 2005a, Mason (2002), Moran (2000Moran ( , 2001, to name but a few sources. Much of this work analyses the processes whereby hate crimes are introduced to the criminal law, and examines specific hate crime incidents and their aftermath.…”

The legislative context of prejudice motivated victimisation: perceptions of police legitimacy and citizen decisions to report hate crime incidents

“…Hate crime laws ensure that law enforcement personnel pay attention to hate crime incidents and how to tackle such crime (Iganski, 1999b;Walters, 2013). This link between legislation, police practice and the manner in which crimes are reported and handled is well established in the crimino-legal literature.…”

“…Future research should investigate the way that police respond to hate crime allegations and translate the legislative contexts in each Australian state and territory. Hate crime legislation is necessary to ensure that law enforcement personnel pay special attention to detecting and tackling hate crime (Iganski, 1999b;Walters, 2013). According to Mason and Dyer (2013) Surprisingly, although Western Australia has a strong set of PMC legislation, it lacks a police strategy to tackle the problem.…”