ABSTRACT

Offences that we now recognise as hate crimes have a long history, as we shall see in chapter two, but until relatively recently they were not officially labelled as such. Today politicians, criminal justice agencies, the media and the public use the term fairly liberally. Society’s concern with this ‘new’ type of crime is therefore a relatively recent development. But what is it exactly that we mean when we talk about ‘hate crime’? Before we can explore any of the issues associated with the concept it is crucial that we have an understanding of exactly what it is that we are talking about. As we shall see, much depends upon the strength and depth of this understanding. As such, this opening chapter will seek to define and conceptualise hate crime, and will examine the inherent difficulties and complexities associated with doing so. The wide implications associatedwith the use of various definitionswill also be explored.

Barbara Perry (2001) suggests that, as is the case with crime in general, it is very difficult to construct an exhaustive definition of ‘hate crime’ that is able to take account of all of its facets. Crime is of course socially constructed and means different things to different people, different things at different times, and what constitutes a crime in one place may not in another. As Perry suggests, crime is therefore relative and historically and culturally contingent, and as we shall see this is particularly true of hate crime. Indeed, as will become clear, ‘hate crime’ is a notoriously difficult concept to define accurately and effectively. Given this inescapable complexity it should not come as any surprise that numerous academic and professional definitions exist around the world. In a statement that still resonates today, Boeckmann and Turpin-Petrosino (2002: 208) set the scene by stating that: