NCJ Number
232732
Editor(s)
Neil Chakraborti
Date Published
2010
Length
284 pages
Annotation
The authors of this edited collection are helping to shape hate-crime scholarship, and the chapters they have written focus on descriptions and critiques of current law, primarily British but also international, and law enforcement that address hate crimes; and recommendations are offered for improving the criminal justice system's response to hate crimes.
Abstract
The six chapters of Part 1 address "Developing Understandings of Hate Crime." These chapters examine post-9/11 trends in hate crime scholarship; implications for the interpretation of hate crime law from a case study of the murder and severe beating of two youth who adhered to the Goth subculture; what the past teaches about future challenges for hate-crime policy; and the difficulties in enforcing homophobic hate-crime laws in Northern Ireland, which is a society infused with anti-homosexual religious beliefs. Two other chapters of part 1 examine verbal and textual expressions of hostility as evidence in hate-crime prosecutions and the characteristics of hate-crime offenders. The five chapters of Part 2 address issues in "Developing Responses to Hate Crimes." These chapters consider theoretical perspectives on the complexities of policing hatred as a motive in criminal behavior; parallels between policing hate crimes against lesbian women, gay men, bisexual individuals, and transgender individuals and the protection of Muslim communities from extremism within their communities; and ways to increase hate-crime reporting by individuals specified in hate-crime law as vulnerable to victimization. Other chapters in part 2 discuss the definitional challenges posed by having to distinguish a "racially aggravated crime" from other crimes under hate-crime law, and the use of restorative justice procedures in the processing of hate-crime cases. 15 tables, 1 figure, 3 case studies, chapter notes and references, and a subject index