ABSTRACT
You will have no doubt noticed from the previous chapter that the various attempts to define ‘hate crime’ have been made relatively recently. Yet, human history is littered with examples of events and actions that we would now call ‘hate crimes’, often leaving legacies that have shaped, and continue to shape, the modern history and collective viewpoints of many countries and cultures around the world. Whilst we shall refer to a few illustrative examples in this chapter, there is not the space here to discuss the countless historical examples of persecution along racial, religious, ethnic and other lines, but try this simple exercise: revisit the definitions of hate crime from the previous chapter, and then open up any history book. Plentiful examples are generally not too hard to find. For our purposes now, however, we are left with a rather interesting
question that we need to consider: given the lengthy history of ‘identity’- motivated persecution (much of it often state sanctioned – slavery springs immediately to mind here), why is it only relatively recently that some countries have come to regard ‘hate’ crime as a social problem requiring a formal response from the state, the legislature and the various criminal justice agencies? In this chapter, then, we shall examine the emergence of hate crime as a contemporary socio-legal problem in the two jurisdictions that have arguably led the way in developing sanctions for this ‘new’ form of criminal behaviour – the US and England and Wales. To do this, perhaps the best way to chart the rise of any social problem is through the process by which it achieves legal recognition, which represents the ultimate official acceptance of the need to respond. It is through this lens that I shall examine the rise of hate crime as a contemporary social issue, starting with the US, before briefly considering the respective legislative provisions to have emerged from this historical evolution.
