Appraise the key traditional theoretical approaches to victimology and evaluate how effectively they explain and understand hate crime
Appraise the key traditional theoretical approaches to victimology and evaluate how effectively they explain and understand hate crime
Hate crime is a relatively new term in victimology and one that Jenness and Broad (1997) attribute the rise of to a series of progressive social movements in United States starting in the 1960s1. Chakraboti and Garland (2009) argue that in the UK hate crime appears to have gained momentum as a result of numerous high profile publicised events that took place such as the Brixton riots of 1981, the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1999 and the nail bomb attacks by David Copeland in 1999, all drawing widespread attention to the problems posed by crimes against members of minority groups6.
Hate crime is relative and establishing a universal definition in the context of constantly changing social norms will always be difficult especially due to the subjectivity associated with emotive term ‘hate.’ Generally, what differentiates hate crimes are not the criminal offences attributed to them but the motivation of the perpetrator. Hate crimes are largely acts of violence or intimidation on already stigmatised and marginalised minority communities that portray a message to these communities that they are in some way different and as a result the effects of the crime extend further than the direct participants to the different communities from which both the perpetrator and victim belong5. Perry (2001) refers to them as ‘message’ crimes5. Gerstenfeld (2004) defined hate crimes not where the offender simply hates the victim but are criminal acts that are motivated by the group affiliation of the victim6. The definition provided by the Association of Chief Police Officer’s (ACPO) 2005 Hate Crime Guidelines extended the incidents that can be recorded under hate crime to those motivated by prejudice “any incident…which is perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by prejudice or hate.14” Petrosino 2003 adds a notion of
Hate crime is a relatively new term in victimology and one that Jenness and Broad (1997) attribute the rise of to a series of progressive social movements in United States starting in the 1960s1. Chakraboti and Garland (2009) argue that in the UK hate crime appears to have gained momentum as a result of numerous high profile publicised events that took place such as the Brixton riots of 1981, the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1999 and the nail bomb attacks by David Copeland in 1999, all drawing widespread attention to the problems posed by crimes against members of minority groups6.
Hate crime is relative and establishing a universal definition in the context of constantly changing social norms will always be difficult especially due to the subjectivity associated with emotive term ‘hate.’ Generally, what differentiates hate crimes are not the criminal offences attributed to them but the motivation of the perpetrator. Hate crimes are largely acts of violence or intimidation on already stigmatised and marginalised minority communities that portray a message to these communities that they are in some way different and as a result the effects of the crime extend further than the direct participants to the different communities from which both the perpetrator and victim belong5. Perry (2001) refers to them as ‘message’ crimes5. Gerstenfeld (2004) defined hate crimes not where the offender simply hates the victim but are criminal acts that are motivated by the group affiliation of the victim6. The definition provided by the Association of Chief Police Officer’s (ACPO) 2005 Hate Crime Guidelines extended the incidents that can be recorded under hate crime to those motivated by prejudice “any incident…which is perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by prejudice or hate.14” Petrosino 2003 adds a notion of