Racial Aggravation or Aggravating Racism: Overcoming the Disjunction Between Legal and Subjective Realities (From Hate Crime: Concepts, Policy, Future Directions, P 209-227, 2010, Neil Chakraborti, ed. - See NCJ-232732)

• NCJ Number: 232742
• Author(s): David Gadd
• Date Published: 2010
• Length: 19 pages
• Sale Source: Willan Publishing
• Publication Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter discusses the definitional challenges posed by having to distinguish a "racially aggravated crime" from other crimes under hate-crime law, using a case study from Great Britain to illustrate what is to be gained by contrasting social-legal, sociological, and psychosocial perspectives on the same phenomenon; and it makes a case for legal reform that presents greater opportunities for potential offenders to understand in which ways their motives might be perceived by others to have been racially aggravated.

Abstract

Since the implementation of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, the police in England and Wales have been able to charge offenders with "racially aggravated" offenses. Such provisions permit courts to enhance the sentences of those convicted of racially aggravated offenses beyond the penalties imposed for non-racially aggravated equivalent offenses. Since the implementation of these provisions, there have been sharp increases in the rates at which racially aggravated offenses are reported to the police and prosecuted by the courts; however, the majority of racist incidents still do not result in the charged person being convicted for a racially aggravated offense. The chapter argues that criminologists should move away from one-dimensional models of the racially motivated offender whose victimizing behaviors are motivated by hate for their victims because of their race. Instead, criminologists must attempt to understand the contradictory and changing inner worlds these offenders occupy and the various ways in which these worlds are understood by those working within criminal justice settings. Working with three models of the racist subject - socio-legal, sociological, and psychosocial - this chapter shows that it is possible to understand how offenders whose racism is hardly evident in the controlling world of the criminal justice system can show hatefulness to their victims in the emotionally charged interaction of a crime. 32 references