ABSTRACT
The concept of ‘hate crime’ has gained widespread acceptance in the criminal justice systems of the United Kingdom. Hate crime is an umbrella term that is used to capture a range of ‘bias-motivated’ crimes directed at individuals or groups because of their actual, or perceived, characteristics. Although hate crime is a recently conceived concept (Newburn and Matassa, 2002), it has rapidly become a significant aspect of both criminal justice vocabulary and practice. This is because, as Jenness and Grattet argue, the ‘seemingly simple pairing of words — “hate” and “crime” — creates a signifier that conveys an enormous sense of threat and an attendant demand for response’ (2004: 2). The growth in perception of the threat of hate crime in the UK and the demand to address it has resulted in a number of Government initiatives, the most ambitious of which is the Challenge it, Report it, Stop it plan announced in March 2012 (H.M. Government, 2012). This coordinated strategy, involving a wide range of criminal justice practitioners, outlines an ambitious scheme to tackle this ‘particularly corrosive’ form of crime (H.M. Government, 2012: 3).
