NCJ Number
215281
Journal
Criminology & Criminal Justice Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2006 Pages: 309-328
Date Published
August 2006
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This article attempts to sort the messages sent by the anti-hate crime provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 (CDC) and how the messages were received by a group of young offenders in North Staffordshire in the United Kingdom.
Abstract
Research in North Staffordshire sheds doubt on whether the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 (CDA) sends out a clear and comprehensible message to the criminal justice system and the general public on anti-hate crime. What is found is that the supposedly clear deterrent and declaratory messages contained in the Crime and Disorder Act (CDA) of 1998 are either drowned out or distorted by other signals coming from successive New Labor Governments about crime, immigration, nationality, and community cohesion. The history of Britain’s attempts to outlaw hate in the interests of better race relations dates back some 40 years. However, the term "hate crime" did not come into popular usage in the United Kingdom until the 1990s. In 1998, the CDA’s criminalization of hate was just one of a number of policy initiatives in the field of “race equality.” This article set out to interpret the messages about hate crime sent to perpetrators, and people from their local communities, by the creation in the CDA of a new category of racially aggravated offenses. References