Disability hate speech

Blaming the victim: disability hate crime

This study aimed to analyse the emergence and development of Disability Hate Crime as a policy area in the criminal justice system in England and Wales. It did this through building an understanding of the contributory factors including the challenges within the criminal justice system, wider government and politics, the independent statutory sector and disabled peoples organisations that led to the emergence and development of Disability Hate Crime policy and practice. This study contributes the first comprehensive analysis of the emergence and development of Disability Hate Crime in England and Wales to hate crime studies. Using a case study approach the thesis triangulates evidence from interviews in activist, policy and political streams, from hate crime cases and analysis of policy documents to chart this policy journey. It analyses the journey from agenda invisibility through agenda triggering to significant institutionalised actions on Disability Hate Crime in the criminal justice system, showing the roles of activism, politics and policy making in shaping this policy process. It underscores the analysis of this policy journey with a key focus on problematisation in policy making on Disability Hate Crime. This study found that Disability Hate Crime has faced challenges in its emergence and development as a policy area in the criminal justice system. It has faced challenges at each stage of the policy journey from initial agenda triggering, through agenda setting and onto agenda institutionalisation. This study concludes that Disability Hate Crime is an unsettled and unsettling policy agenda with agenda institutionalisation, as an established predictable area of policy and practice, some way off, despite legislation in 2003. The study found that: - Disability Hate Crime remains an unsettled policy agenda in that it displays an unsettled discourse, varied ways of responding, a need for ongoing national strategic action, and limited transition into day-to-day routine business. - Disability Hate Crime is an unsettling policy agenda in that it challenges understandings of hostility and prejudice beyond direct manifestations of hostility. It is also unsettling in that it raises a dual problematisation of targeted crimes against disabled people as either hostility targeting or vulnerability targeting. This reflects a wider dual problematisation of disability as either an issue of welfare or as an issue of rights. - Current understandings of disability hostility reflect under recognition of disability discrimination and linked ideologies of ableism and disablism. This under recognition of disability hostility lead to justice failures in Disability Hate Crime cases. Constructions of the targeting of disabled people in crime as based on vulnerability lacks recognition of such targeting as biased, hostile targeting of disabled people. This study reconceptualises disability hostility as hostility including vulnerability targeting. Arising from these conclusions, on an optimistic note, this study recommends a change to hate crime law which recognises that disability hostility can be based on hostility demonstration, a hostility motivation or hostile targeting because of disability. This study concludes that rather than institutionalisation of Disability Hate Crime as day-to-day hate crime business, it still remains unusual business. This study contributes a reconceptualization of the concept of disability hostility to include targeting because of disability – ‘disability vulnerability’. It makes the case for varied legal provisions to reflect the protection requirements of different hate crime strands. It adds to the body of case studies on public policy making. Finally, it illuminates the influence of equality law on Disability Hate Crime policy making.

Held at the Merseyside Maritime Museum on 13 October 2015, this conference brought together recent research, policy, and practice to discuss the latest developments in challenging hate crime. Organized by the International Criminological Research Unit (ICRU) at the University of Liverpool, in with Merseyside Police and Moving On with Life and Learning (MOWLL), the importance of partnership echoed throughout the day. The transdisciplinary nature of the conference invited speakers from a range of fields to explore the impact of hate crime for the communities too often placed at the centre of victimology. The wide range of speakers included activists, academics, and practitioners representing disability, race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. While recognizing the unique cases of hate crime for these different communities, the idea of collaboration was central to developing future debates that could continue to challenge all aspects of hate crime.Introducing the day's keynotes, Professor David Ormerod employed a political interpretation of hate crime. In relation to the project assigned to the Law of Commissions by the Ministry of Justice, he provided a brief outline of the Commissions response for the development of hate crime legislation. The primary concern underpinning this project was the need to extend the categories of aggravated and stirring up hatred so that they applied to all five protected characteristics. In a politically informed exploration of the conceptual tensions underpinning hate crime legislation, Professor Ormerod concluded by giving the final recommendation of the Commission not to extend the current offences. Although justified on the basis that such offences lacked relevance to the forms of hate crime most often experienced by both lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), and disabled communities, this conclusion generated a varied response among the academics, activists, and professionals in the room. While I recognized the political complexity that legislative change entails, this conclusion left me pondering the political misinterpretation of a human rights agenda that continued a system of legislative discrepancy. Moreover, I could not help feeling pessimistic about the political developments aiming to challenge hate crime. If disabled and LGBT communities are not given equal status and protection in legislation, I wonder how they might gain this in a society that has historically nurtured a rejection of difference.Centred on a approach to the of hate crime, Professor Paul Iganski invited us to move away from the criminological focus of reporting crime toward a perspective on both the spatial and psycho-social consequences. The psycho-social approach extended my own interpretation of victimization, and led me to focus not only on the instant physical and emotional effects of hate crime but also on those of post-traumatic stress, identity, and visibility. Perhaps of greater impact, however, Professor Iganski reaffirmed the spatial impact of hate crime, such as the sense of locational imprisonment, whereby many communities feel restricted and have to avoid certain areas that threaten their identity. The unsettling severity of a global problem questions the cultural and social conditions in which hate crime is nested, probing the need for preventative measures on both individual and community levels. Professor Iganski's attempt to move toward a public health approach therefore encouraged a model of resistance and prevention predicated upon a communitive challenge to hate crime.These keynotes introduced the conference to hate crime in relation to race, religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation. However, my main reflections here are on the work of Professor Alan Roulstone regarding disablist hate crime.1Professor Roulstone introduced the conference to many of the issues faced when challenging disablist hate crime. …

Making disablist hate crime visible: addressing the challenges of improving reporting: Chih Hoong Sin

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was very little debate about the need to address Disability Hate Crime in England and Wales. Significant problematization and activism occurred to socially construct disability hostility as a problem worthy of political–policy attention. The introduction of new legislation addressing disability hostility is explored, noting the range of contributions to the securing of Section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and particularly the critical political interventions by ministers and other politicians behind it. A strategic coupling occurred between activism and the political arenas enabled by policy entrepreneurs, who identified a policy window of opportunity in the form of the development of the 2003 Act and successfully created a hate crime policy domain for Disability Hate Crime. In doing so, they homogenized Disability Hate Crime as simply another strand in the hate crime domain. Without significant problematization efforts by activists and critical interventions by some political actors, expansion of the hate crime policy domain to include disability hostility would not have occurred.

In the context of there being little robust U.K. data on disabled people's exposure to violent crime and hate crime, we examined self-reported rates of exposure over the preceding 12 months to violent crime, hate crime, and disablist hate crime in a newly established survey, the U.K.'s Life Opportunities Survey. Information was collected from a nationally representative sample of 37,513 British adults (age 16 or older). Results indicated that (a) disabled adults were significantly more likely to have been exposed over the previous 12 months to violent crime (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 2.33, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [2.08, 2.61]) and hate crime (adjusted OR = 2.58, 95% CI = [2.17, 3.07]) than their non-disabled peers, (b) the differential risk of exposure to violent crime was particularly elevated among disabled adults with mental health problems (adjusted OR = 6.26, 95% CI = [5.01, 7.82]), (c) the differential risk of exposure to hate crime was particularly elevated among disabled adults with mental health problems (adjusted OR = 10.70, 95% CI = [7.91, 14.47]) or cognitive impairments (adjusted OR = 6.66, 95% CI = [3.95, 11.22]), and (d) these effects were strongly moderated by poverty status with no increase in differential risk of exposure for disabled adults among more wealthy respondents.

LGBTQ cultural competence for pharmacists

Changing language, changes lives: Learning the lexicon of LGBTQ+ health equity.

This chapter outlines the policy and legislative responses to hate crime in the United Kingdom. It focuses on England and Wales, as Scotland and Northern Ireland have independent legislative and judicial procedures, however it should be stated that the devolved legislatures have broadly similar natures and some functions such as foreign policy responses are shared. Whilst there was recognition of hate crime, and particularly racist hate crime, in the UK beforehand, the catalyst for current policy and legislation was the murder of Stephen Lawrence in London in April 1993. In response to the Task Force report, the Government established a work programme, initially called Race for Justice, but latterly known as the Cross-Government Hate Crime Programme. After the programme was established in April 2007, it began work to agree a common definition of hate crime which would provide clarity and also allow system changes to provide more accurate data on the extent of hate crime.

To explore the variations of sexual orientation and gender identity as well as the intersections of those identities in a sample of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth. Identity development is a key task of adolescence. Among the multiple identities that young people navigate are sexual orientation and gender identity. Challenges with solidifying and integrating aspects of one's identity can contribute to poor physical and mental health outcomes. Cross-sectional descriptive survey. A convenience sample was recruited via collaborations with community organisations and Internet groups who provide information and services for LGBTQ youth under the age of 25. Of the 175 respondents, one-third of the sample reported a gender identity that was not congruent with their sex assigned at birth. Those assigned female sex at birth reported noncongruent gender identities as well as fluid and nonbinary identities such as genderqueer and agender more frequently that respondents assigned male at birth. Individuals with noncongruent gender identities were more likely to identify with a sexual orientation other than lesbian, gay or bisexual than individuals with gender identities congruent with their sex assigned at birth. Adolescent sexual orientation and gender identity are complex and nuanced. Nurse scientists and clinical nurses can contribute to understanding of these identities, their meaning to the young person and the unique health implications by regularly inquiring about sexual orientation and gender identity in their practice. Nurses in clinical practice need to be aware of the sometimes complicated nature of adolescent identity and its related terminology so that they can ask relevant questions and provide culturally safe care.

In England and Wales, Section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 made disability hate crimes legal. This advocated for increased sentencing for perpetrators whose crimes were motivated by or demonstrated hate against a person with a handicap or a perceived disability. Currently, this additional sentencing provision is the only legal option for prosecuting disability hate crime perpetrators. This thesis explores the experience and aftermath of hate crimes committed against England’s cognitively challenged senior victim group. The cognitively challenged elderly victim group is far more likely to face bias and violence; they have a greater likelihood of re-victimisation and suffer significant suffering as a result of hate crimes. To date, the voices of cognitively deficient elderly victims and survivors have been mostly absent from scholarly research and hate crime policies. As a result, the purpose of this article is to look into present policy barriers and how the cognitively challenged senior victim group might best receive support, justice, and interventions following discriminatory hate crimes. There has been little examination and discussion of intersectionality in disability studies and hate crime research. Common ideas fail to adequately reflect the multifaceted, overlapping, and complex experiences of danger and victimisation. This paper builds on studies on hate crimes against the cognitively deficient elderly victim group. It noted the challenge of categorising individual encounters as one type of hate crime. Victims and their relatives recognised that they were targeted for a variety of reasons, including their inability to care for themselves and their age. The study contends that the present strand-based approach to hate crime conceals a multitude of cross-identity characteristics that, when combined, might raise the danger of victimisation while decreasing a victim’s chance of reporting their experiences. To address vulnerability, safety, and hate crime against disabled people in England and Wales’ criminal justice, health, social care, and refuge systems, barriers to including the cognitively impaired senior victim group in the policy process are presented, allowing for targeted suggestions and changes on relevant issues.

This chapter suggests that problems over the perception of the nature of hate crime mean that often victims of disablist hate crime are overlooked. Developed partly through campaign group activism and high profile cases, hate crime has become a solid part of criminal justice policy and practice. The legal framework recognises different forms of crime motivated by prejudice or hostility towards victims based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or disability. However, this chapter demonstrates that there are particular problems with the implementation of provisions related to disablist hate crime which can be understood by utilising Christie’s ‘ideal victim’ typology. Born out of an identity politics which sought recognition for the specific harms of hate crime, the development of policy has been shaped by sometimes simplistic perceptions of what it is to be victimised, often framed around issues of stranger danger and attributing recognition to ‘deserving victims’. This reliance on identity politics often means that victims of disablist hate crime are portrayed as weak and vulnerable, which can contribute to anxiety. This chapter shows the relevance of Christie’s ideal victim thesis due to an increasing emphasis on identity politics being used to determine ‘deserving’ and ‘legitimate’ victims.

A Systematic Review of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Epidemiology and Health Outcomes in Sexual and Gender Minority Individuals

Hate crime in the United Kingdom

PurposeThis paper aims to consider the relationship between disability hate crime and safeguarding adults. It critically considers whether safeguarding responses to disability hate crime have changed following the implementation of the Care Act 2014. Historically, protectionist responses to disabled people may have masked the scale of hate crime and prevented them from seeking legal recourse through the criminal justice system (CJS). This paper investigates whether agencies are working together effectively to tackle hate crime.Design/methodology/approachThe research presented draws on semi-structured interviews with key informants who work with disabled people and organisations as part of a wider study on disability hate crime.FindingsPrior to the Care Act, safeguarding practice often failed to prioritise criminal justice interventions when responding to reports of disability hate crimes. Improving engagement within multi-agency safeguarding hubs and boards has the potential to increase hate crime awareness and reporting.Research limitations/implicationsThis research was limited in scope to 15 participants who worked in England within safeguarding teams or with victims of hate crime.Practical implicationsRaising the profile of disability hate crime within safeguarding teams could lead to achieving more effective outcomes for adults at risk: improving confidence in reporting, identifying perpetrators of hate crimes, enabling the CJS to intervene and reducing the risk of further targeted abuse on the victim or wider community.Originality/valueThis paper is original in its contribution in this field as there is a dearth of research on the relationship between safeguarding and disability hate crime.