ABSTRACT
As we have seen, over the past thirty or so years the enactment of hate crime legislation in the US has represented one of the most lively and significant trends in criminal law-making at both the federal and state level (Levin, 2002; Streissguth, 2003; Hall, 2005). England and Wales has followed suit with various legislative provisions against crimes motivated or aggravated by racial or religious prejudice, sexual orientation and disablism, and the incitement of racial and religious hatred. More recently, other countries (albeit with seemingly varying levels of commitment) have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, various forms of hate crime legislation. The development of legal responses to the hate and discrimination ‘problem’ is evident from the records of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), a part of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who, as we saw in chapter three, collate data on the existence and development of anti-discrimination and hate crime laws in member States (see www.legislationline.org for the latest legislative developments). At the time of writing, ODIHR’s records show the existence or development (albeit in different ways and to greatly varying extents) of ‘hate crime’ laws in over 50 different countries. Jacobs and Potter (1998) suggest, however, that hate crime laws vary but generally fall into one or more of four categories. First, there are those that enhance sentences for hate motivated offences; second, those that redefine existing criminal behaviours as a ‘new’ crime or as an aggravated form of an existing crime; third, those that relate specifically to civil rights issues and finally, those that concern themselves solely with matters of reporting and data collection. One or more of these categories are generally reflected in legislative provisions adopted by countries enacting ‘hate crime’ laws. The rise of hate crime as a contemporary social issue has been driven by a
number of different factors, as we noted in chapter two. In many countries, particularly Western democracies, a combination of the extent and nature of hate crimes, their seemingly increasing upward trend, coupled with increased public tolerance of issues of diversity and sensitivity to prejudice, and the influence of identity politics (the political processes by which certain groups might come to be recognised as disadvantaged), has forced ‘hate’ crimes
onto the statute books. As Boeckmann and Turpin-Petrosino (2002: 207) explain:
The juxtaposition of broad societal agreement on the values of equality and tolerance and the presence of intergroup tensions arising from long-standing differences in society as well as increasing ethnic and social diversity have created a new category of criminalised behaviour: hate crime. Hate crime laws represent official recognition of the harm of intergroup aggression and the importance of applying sanctions against it.
