Current issues and developments in race hate crime
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550507077251 |
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Probation Journal
Article
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Copyright © 2007 NAPO Vol 54(2): 109–124
DOI: 10.1177/0264550507077251
www.napo.org.uk
http://prb.sagepub.com
Current issues and developments in race hate
crime
Liz Dixon, London Probation Area
Larry Ray, University of Kent
Abstract This article considers the ‘hate agenda’ as a model for interventions
targeted at race hate crime. The authors consider current initiatives in different
agencies and make some comparisons between the American and British experience.
Keywords community cohesion, race hate crime, racism, Stephen Lawrence,
Zahid Mubarek
This article focuses on how criminal justice agencies work with racial offending
and hate focused offending. It considers the underpinning knowledge, which
has evolved over the last decade, and the impact of high profile murders and urban
disturbances. It will explore conceptual frameworks, which can help staff under-
stand the purpose of the offending and assist in professional assessments and
interventions. In particular, we will look at whether the wholesale adoption of the
‘hate terminology’ assists staff in their actual encounters with offenders. We make
comparisons with the American experience of a hate agenda to demonstrate the
different perspectives.
Hate crime as a developing phenomenon
The Metropolitan Police Manual, ‘Identifying and Combating Hate Crime’ (2000),
highlights the new awareness of and commitment towards tackling hate offending:
Beyond the impact of the individual hate, hate crime is a powerful poison in
society. It emphasises and sensitises feelings of difference rather than focusing on
what is shared in common. It breeds mistrust and suspicion, alienation and envy. It
promotes isolation and exclusion and sets up barriers to communication. (p. 21)
109
110 Probation Journal 54(2)
Hate crime is an expanding phenomenon and the effect, impact, severity and
underlying motivation of offending varies with different types of hate. Histories of
oppression, victims’ experiences and overall impact vary greatly amongst different
groups, making this an ambitious agenda, while the alliances formed are not
always natural ones. Statutory criminal and community justice agencies are grap-
pling with the challenges of adopting hate crime in its broadest sense whilst many
victim support agencies continue to focus on specific manifestation of hate such
as race hate or homophobic crime.
The meanings of ‘hate crime’ are not always clear. Hate crime is embedded in
a contested cultural shift that relates ultimately to the redefinition of parameters
of a politics of difference. Hate crime itself may be characterized by the fear of
retaliatory reactions, the backlash, and the ferocity of the violence involved
(Iganski, 1999). The victim literature (e.g. Chahal and Julienne, 1999; Bowling,
1998; Victim Support UK, 2006) and crime reports of victims’ experiences testify
to the prevalence of persistent harassment and violence, and the specific impact
that it has on victims and communities. It conjures up images of violent and highly
emotive crime committed by extremists – but much research in the area, including
Ray et al. (2003, 2004) indicates that this is the exception, at least in the UK (see
also Burney et al., 2002). Much of what gets labelled ‘hate crime’ is more casual
confrontation in which racist (or other hate language) is deployed. But it has also
become caught up in the current ‘wars’ against crime, drugs, terrorism and anti-
social behaviour, which presuppose a polarized ‘us’ and ‘them’, good and bad.
In fact, research into hate crime perpetrators indicates that much of this behaviour
is more ambiguous and subject to re-evaluation by the participants, who often
display adherence to dominant norms of acceptable behaviour. The evidence from
agencies engaged in dealing with racial harassment and community conflict
suggests that race is often an issue in violence and anti-social behaviour, but not
the issue (see Lemos, 2004; Hall, 2005). That said, hate crime runs the gamut from
harassment and criminal damage through to murder and genocide. The challenge
in carrying out risk assessment is predicting the likelihood of re-offending and
assessing the potency of the prejudice. This article examines issues associated with
this professional endeavour.
The historical context
‘Hate crime’ is a category of recent invention, originating in attempts in the USA
to enact statutes against lynching and incitement to racist hatred during the
1920s–1940s. Despite a few successes, such as the Illinois ‘group libel’ statute
1920,1 most of these efforts failed until the Civil Rights legislation in the late 1960s.
By the early 1950s seven US states and many large cities had adopted group libel
statues, which in 1952 the Supreme Court upheld in the face of a challenge to
their constitutionality (Tanenhaus, 1952). Although hate crime statutes have their
origins in this process, a second-generation set of issues emerged from the early
1980s, and were subsequently transplanted into other national and international
jurisdictions. These issues indicate a shift from the assimilationist goals of Civil
Rights legislation to new agendas orientated towards the protection of difference
Dixon & Ray ● Current issues and developments in race hate crime 111
and politics of identity. Hate crime has rapidly become a powerful term with strong
rhetorical force.
This process is embedded in major social changes associated with the emer-
gence of contemporary societies in the later 20th century. Rights-based legislation
has become more central in pluralistic societies constituted by a multiplicity of
memberships – of religious, political, cultural, occupational and ethnic groups. As
people are less bound together by common values or ways of life the importance
of formal procedures (such as liberal democracy and guarantees of rights) have
become crucial to the articulation of substantive differences. These changes, some-
times described as ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ (Tarrow, 2003), suggest that there
has been a shift from the idea of the Other as ‘stranger’ (e.g. Simmel, 1950) to
a situation where in modern societies there are multiple identities working them-
selves out at multiple sites. With the unprecedented population mobility of the 20th
century, and emergence of global economies, media and communications, new
forms of cultural hybridity and transnational identities have emerged; in which
many people have overlapping memberships of national, religious and ethnic
communities. Cosmopolitanism becomes rooted in the fabric of modern societies,
which calls for new strategies of regulation and integration.
Hate crime legislation reconfigured the ways in which the criminal justice system
deals with certain types of violence, encouraged by victim movements, anti-racism
movements and lesbian–gay activism, directed towards changing the ways we
think about violence. This has occurred especially in the USA where civil rights
groups, women’s groups and lesbian and gay campaigners have (often in alliance
with more traditionally ‘right-wing’ victim movements), argued that bias victimiza-
tion is ‘terrorism’ directed against sexual and ethnic minorities (see, for example,
Jenness and Broad, 1997). These campaigns were important in the passage of
the Hate Crimes Statistics Act (1990, amended 1996) and the Violence Against
Women Act (1994). In the UK the Stephen Lawrence campaign was similarly
successful in mobilizing support across the political spectrum for a public inquiry
– that brought together factions as disparate as left-wing anti-racist movements,
senior police officers and The Daily Mail, a national newspaper.
Hate crime in the United States
There are variations in the scope and extent of hate crime laws in the USA. Wash-
ington DC has the most encompassing definition, including race, religion, national
origin, gender, sexual orientation, personal appearance, family responsibility,
marital status and education. This illustrates the potential for hate or bias crime
legislation to come to encompass most imaginable social groups. Hate crime
initiatives resonate with wider political agendas that focus on social inclusion and
exclusion, identity and victim politics. In the US the Hate Crimes Statistics Act (1990)
requires for the recording of an event as a ‘hate crime’ that there is ‘manifest
evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity and
requires recording officers to complete a 14-point checklist involving a great deal
of subjectivity and requiring tacit knowledge of the offences by the recording
officer’ (Jacobs, 2003). By contrast in the UK the Macpherson definition regards
112 Probation Journal 54(2)
as a racist incident ‘any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or
any other person’ (Macpherson, 1999: Chapter 47, Paragraph 1). The definition
was designed to empower victims, trigger investigation and counteract the culture
of minimization. The definition has met with some resistance and confusion as it
is sometimes perceived as being too heavily weighted in favour of alleged victims
(Edgar and Martin, 2004). These differences in recording criteria possibly account
for the fact that in the UK, with a population of around 60 million, about 50,000
racist incidents are recorded each year, while in the US with a population of around
300 million about 5500 racist incidents and 7500 hate crimes are recorded.
The usefulness of hate crime statutes
There is extensive debate over the meaning and usefulness of hate...
Article
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Copyright © 2007 NAPO Vol 54(2): 109–124
DOI: 10.1177/0264550507077251
www.napo.org.uk
http://prb.sagepub.com
Current issues and developments in race hate
crime
Liz Dixon, London Probation Area
Larry Ray, University of Kent
Abstract This article considers the ‘hate agenda’ as a model for interventions
targeted at race hate crime. The authors consider current initiatives in different
agencies and make some comparisons between the American and British experience.
Keywords community cohesion, race hate crime, racism, Stephen Lawrence,
Zahid Mubarek
This article focuses on how criminal justice agencies work with racial offending
and hate focused offending. It considers the underpinning knowledge, which
has evolved over the last decade, and the impact of high profile murders and urban
disturbances. It will explore conceptual frameworks, which can help staff under-
stand the purpose of the offending and assist in professional assessments and
interventions. In particular, we will look at whether the wholesale adoption of the
‘hate terminology’ assists staff in their actual encounters with offenders. We make
comparisons with the American experience of a hate agenda to demonstrate the
different perspectives.
Hate crime as a developing phenomenon
The Metropolitan Police Manual, ‘Identifying and Combating Hate Crime’ (2000),
highlights the new awareness of and commitment towards tackling hate offending:
Beyond the impact of the individual hate, hate crime is a powerful poison in
society. It emphasises and sensitises feelings of difference rather than focusing on
what is shared in common. It breeds mistrust and suspicion, alienation and envy. It
promotes isolation and exclusion and sets up barriers to communication. (p. 21)
109
110 Probation Journal 54(2)
Hate crime is an expanding phenomenon and the effect, impact, severity and
underlying motivation of offending varies with different types of hate. Histories of
oppression, victims’ experiences and overall impact vary greatly amongst different
groups, making this an ambitious agenda, while the alliances formed are not
always natural ones. Statutory criminal and community justice agencies are grap-
pling with the challenges of adopting hate crime in its broadest sense whilst many
victim support agencies continue to focus on specific manifestation of hate such
as race hate or homophobic crime.
The meanings of ‘hate crime’ are not always clear. Hate crime is embedded in
a contested cultural shift that relates ultimately to the redefinition of parameters
of a politics of difference. Hate crime itself may be characterized by the fear of
retaliatory reactions, the backlash, and the ferocity of the violence involved
(Iganski, 1999). The victim literature (e.g. Chahal and Julienne, 1999; Bowling,
1998; Victim Support UK, 2006) and crime reports of victims’ experiences testify
to the prevalence of persistent harassment and violence, and the specific impact
that it has on victims and communities. It conjures up images of violent and highly
emotive crime committed by extremists – but much research in the area, including
Ray et al. (2003, 2004) indicates that this is the exception, at least in the UK (see
also Burney et al., 2002). Much of what gets labelled ‘hate crime’ is more casual
confrontation in which racist (or other hate language) is deployed. But it has also
become caught up in the current ‘wars’ against crime, drugs, terrorism and anti-
social behaviour, which presuppose a polarized ‘us’ and ‘them’, good and bad.
In fact, research into hate crime perpetrators indicates that much of this behaviour
is more ambiguous and subject to re-evaluation by the participants, who often
display adherence to dominant norms of acceptable behaviour. The evidence from
agencies engaged in dealing with racial harassment and community conflict
suggests that race is often an issue in violence and anti-social behaviour, but not
the issue (see Lemos, 2004; Hall, 2005). That said, hate crime runs the gamut from
harassment and criminal damage through to murder and genocide. The challenge
in carrying out risk assessment is predicting the likelihood of re-offending and
assessing the potency of the prejudice. This article examines issues associated with
this professional endeavour.
The historical context
‘Hate crime’ is a category of recent invention, originating in attempts in the USA
to enact statutes against lynching and incitement to racist hatred during the
1920s–1940s. Despite a few successes, such as the Illinois ‘group libel’ statute
1920,1 most of these efforts failed until the Civil Rights legislation in the late 1960s.
By the early 1950s seven US states and many large cities had adopted group libel
statues, which in 1952 the Supreme Court upheld in the face of a challenge to
their constitutionality (Tanenhaus, 1952). Although hate crime statutes have their
origins in this process, a second-generation set of issues emerged from the early
1980s, and were subsequently transplanted into other national and international
jurisdictions. These issues indicate a shift from the assimilationist goals of Civil
Rights legislation to new agendas orientated towards the protection of difference
Dixon & Ray ● Current issues and developments in race hate crime 111
and politics of identity. Hate crime has rapidly become a powerful term with strong
rhetorical force.
This process is embedded in major social changes associated with the emer-
gence of contemporary societies in the later 20th century. Rights-based legislation
has become more central in pluralistic societies constituted by a multiplicity of
memberships – of religious, political, cultural, occupational and ethnic groups. As
people are less bound together by common values or ways of life the importance
of formal procedures (such as liberal democracy and guarantees of rights) have
become crucial to the articulation of substantive differences. These changes, some-
times described as ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ (Tarrow, 2003), suggest that there
has been a shift from the idea of the Other as ‘stranger’ (e.g. Simmel, 1950) to
a situation where in modern societies there are multiple identities working them-
selves out at multiple sites. With the unprecedented population mobility of the 20th
century, and emergence of global economies, media and communications, new
forms of cultural hybridity and transnational identities have emerged; in which
many people have overlapping memberships of national, religious and ethnic
communities. Cosmopolitanism becomes rooted in the fabric of modern societies,
which calls for new strategies of regulation and integration.
Hate crime legislation reconfigured the ways in which the criminal justice system
deals with certain types of violence, encouraged by victim movements, anti-racism
movements and lesbian–gay activism, directed towards changing the ways we
think about violence. This has occurred especially in the USA where civil rights
groups, women’s groups and lesbian and gay campaigners have (often in alliance
with more traditionally ‘right-wing’ victim movements), argued that bias victimiza-
tion is ‘terrorism’ directed against sexual and ethnic minorities (see, for example,
Jenness and Broad, 1997). These campaigns were important in the passage of
the Hate Crimes Statistics Act (1990, amended 1996) and the Violence Against
Women Act (1994). In the UK the Stephen Lawrence campaign was similarly
successful in mobilizing support across the political spectrum for a public inquiry
– that brought together factions as disparate as left-wing anti-racist movements,
senior police officers and The Daily Mail, a national newspaper.
Hate crime in the United States
There are variations in the scope and extent of hate crime laws in the USA. Wash-
ington DC has the most encompassing definition, including race, religion, national
origin, gender, sexual orientation, personal appearance, family responsibility,
marital status and education. This illustrates the potential for hate or bias crime
legislation to come to encompass most imaginable social groups. Hate crime
initiatives resonate with wider political agendas that focus on social inclusion and
exclusion, identity and victim politics. In the US the Hate Crimes Statistics Act (1990)
requires for the recording of an event as a ‘hate crime’ that there is ‘manifest
evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity and
requires recording officers to complete a 14-point checklist involving a great deal
of subjectivity and requiring tacit knowledge of the offences by the recording
officer’ (Jacobs, 2003). By contrast in the UK the Macpherson definition regards
112 Probation Journal 54(2)
as a racist incident ‘any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or
any other person’ (Macpherson, 1999: Chapter 47, Paragraph 1). The definition
was designed to empower victims, trigger investigation and counteract the culture
of minimization. The definition has met with some resistance and confusion as it
is sometimes perceived as being too heavily weighted in favour of alleged victims
(Edgar and Martin, 2004). These differences in recording criteria possibly account
for the fact that in the UK, with a population of around 60 million, about 50,000
racist incidents are recorded each year, while in the US with a population of around
300 million about 5500 racist incidents and 7500 hate crimes are recorded.
The usefulness of hate crime statutes
There is extensive debate over the meaning and usefulness of hate...
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