Hunger Strike: The Body as Resource

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.

This chapter traces the journey from hate crime to Disability Hate Crime through an analysis of the relevant literature including policy related documents which construct and reference Disability Hate Crime. It considers the origins and evolving conceptions of both hate crime and Disability Hate Crime, the construction of disability in public policy and the construction of disability within hate crime policy. It is only recently that disability hostility has begun to be recognized as Disability Hate Crime, and it is a contested, contentious and ambiguous concept. Nonetheless, it is now recognized as a ‘social fact’ with an active policy domain and set of policies and practices. A review of the key academic literature on Disability Hate Crime and its relationship to hate crime literature in general is set out, as well as a review of the significant literature produced by the independent statutory sector, the community sector and by individual authors. Here is set out the critical consideration of the journey from hate crime to Disability Hate Crime that follows and that is concerned with how Disability Hate Crime policy and practice emerged and developed, and equally on seeking to explain why it emerged as and when it did in hate crime.

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

The aim of this research scoping review was to assemble an evidence base for the UK on mental health service user experiences and perspectives on mental health-related targeted violence and hostility ('disability hate crime'). It also aims to address some of the gaps in the knowledge on risk management, help-seeking and prevention from the perspectives of those who experienced targeted violence and hostility because of their mental health problems or psychiatric status. Seven key mental health and social care bibliographic databases were searched for relevant UK research studies from 1990 until 2016. Grey literature was identified through online searches. A scoping review charting approach and thematic analysis methodology were used to analyse the studies. In total 13 studies were finally included, over half of which used survey methods. All studies included people with experiences of mental health problems. The studies provide information on: the types of potential hate crime; indicate where incidents take place; give some insight into the victims' relationship with the perpetrators; the location of incidents as well as the psychological, social, financial and physical impacts on the victim; the types of help-seeking behaviours adopted by the victims; a range coping strategies that people with mental health problems adopted in response to experiences of targeted violence or abuse. This scoping review provides a UK-based overview of mental health service user concepts and experiences of mental health-related targeted violence and hostility ('disability hate crime'). It reveals some specific issues relating to mental health and disability hate crime. Further investigation into disability hate crime with a specific focus on mental health is required. This is a UK-based overview, which offers a useful comparator for researchers, practitioners and policy-makers internationally.

Blaming the victim: disability hate crime

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.

Twenty years ago, Disability Hate Crime was unheard of in Britain. Today, it is a significant criminal justice concern. This book asks and answers the questions as to how and why Disability Hate Crime developed as a criminal justice system policy concern. It analyses the development of Disability Hate Crime in the criminal justice system in England and Wales and provides the first comprehensive account of this issue’s development. This book analyses the contributions of activists, politicians, policymakers and CJS practitioners to this area of hate crime development. It uniquely analyses the challenges posed by the pervasive view of disability targeting in crime as vulnerability targeting. It points to practical ways through this challenge. It also addresses the under-recognition of disability prejudice–hostility and links this to the wider non-recognition of a fuelling ideology of ableism. While the book identifies Disability Hate Crime as an unsettled and unsettling agenda, it offers an optimistic view that a combination of legal policy change and a critically reflective approach on the part of policymakers and practitioners can lead to progress on Disability Hate Crime such that it becomes embedded as ‘business as usual’ rather than unusual business in the criminal justice system.

Use of English Law in Uzbek Corporate Transactions

Twenty years ago, Disability Hate Crime was unheard of in Britain. Today, it is a significant criminal justice concern. This book asks and answers the questions as to how and why Disability Hate Crime developed as a criminal justice system policy concern. It analyses the development of Disability Hate Crime in the criminal justice system in England and Wales and provides the first comprehensive account of this issue’s development. This book analyses the contributions of activists, politicians, policymakers and CJS practitioners to this area of hate crime development. It uniquely analyses the challenges posed by the pervasive view of disability targeting in crime as vulnerability targeting. It points to practical ways through this challenge. It also addresses the under-recognition of disability prejudice-hostility and links this to the wider non-recognition of a fuelling ideology of ableism. While the book identifies Disability Hate Crime as an unsettled and unsettling agenda, it offers an optimistic view that a combination of legal policy change and a critically reflective approach on the part of policymakers and practitioners can lead to progress on Disability Hate Crime such that it becomes embedded as ‘business as usual’ rather than unusual business in the criminal justice system.

Twenty years ago, Disability Hate Crime was unheard of in England and Wales. Disability Hate Crime is today a significant criminal justice concern. This book addresses how Disability Hate Crime moved from invisibility to policy action. This chapter sets out the book’s themes, which focus on the contributions of activism, politics and policy making to the Disability Hate Crime policy agenda; the challenges of a pervasive focus on vulnerability in Disability Hate Crime; and ableism as a prejudicial ideology fuelling Disability Hate Crime. This chapter introduces the book’s organizing and analytical policy concepts of the problem stream, the policy stream, the politics stream, problem representation and problematization as they apply to Disability Hate Crime.

Towards a General Notion of Good Faith in English Contract Law

This chapter notes that Disability Hate Crime remains to this day an unsettled and unsettling policy and practice agenda. However, the chapter also notes the potential to make progress through adopting a more inclusive legal policy response to Disability Hate Crime. Through such an inclusive legal policy response, the book concludes on a cautiously optimistic note. This chapter also argues that Disability Hate Crime exists within a wider context of disabled people’s experience of disadvantage and discrimination across most areas of social life. A Disability Hate Crime focus should be located within an understanding of disability prejudice and ableism and within a focus on rights and justice. In such a policy context, and underpinned by appropriate legal provisions, Disability Hate Crime can contribute to realizing a society where disabled people can live more dignified lives, freer from fear and with the potential for enhanced human flourishing based simultaneously on recognition of human difference and common humanity. Pursued in isolation, it risks becoming an over-individuated response to wider structural injustices.

Disability hate crimes (DHCs) is an under-reported phenomenon concerning any criminal offense considered to be motivated by hostility/prejudice against a person’s actual or perceived disability. In this chapter, we identify potential relationships that may exist between DHCs and public places in the extant literature in order to shed light on their role in facilitating or hindering the occurrence of DHCs. To this end, Scopus, PubMed, and Scholar databases were used to perform a scoping literature review by searching for keywords related to ‘disability hate crime’, which covered about 80 documents. Our findings highlight a relationship between DHCs and public places—in particular, virtual spaces, public institutions, areas of poverty and deprivation—as well as how these places can facilitate or limit the aforementioned form of violence against a person’s actual or perceived disability in various contexts.

This chapter assesses the context of disabled people’s experience of disadvantage and discrimination, and the persistence of prejudice against this population today in a wide range of social and institutional contexts. The dual problematization of welfare versus rights by state institutions gives a framing to Disability Hate Crime which sets a high standard for considering ableist crime. This chapter explores the extent to which this prejudice is reflective of the ableism impacting the Disability Hate Crime agenda itself. It is argued that in failing to recognize disability prejudice and ableism and their impacts on Disability Hate Crime, there is a failure to recognize and name the issue appropriately and, as a consequence, to deal with Disability Hate Crime justly.

The term ‘disablist hate crime’ is contested; it is used as shorthand for myriad manifestations of hostility, violent attacks, including physical and sexual assault, rape, theft, murder, captivity and damage to property (Thomas, 2011). A common understanding of the term ‘hate crime’ is hostile actions against individuals with certain characteristics. The actions can involve opportunistic street crime, physical assault and damage to residences, including arson. The perpetrators do not usually have a relationship with their victims, but may be known to live within the same neighbourhood. They are generally considered to be motivated by hatred of a perceived group. There are similarities between these types of targeted attacks against disabled people and people in other identity groups, such as BME communities, lesbians and gay men, and transgender people (Macdonald, 2008). ‘Hate crime’ is officially recognised (Crown Prosecution Service, 2007). Earlier critical analysis of ‘hate crime’ has been developed from knowledgeof racist ‘hate crime’, forming a useful basis from which to develop, but the use of a ‘race model’ as the template for disablist hate crime policy is seen by some as misplaced (Roulstone, Thomas and Balderston, 2011). For example, a racist attack on an individual may be, or may be taken to be, an attack on a community, and where that community has the capacity there may be reprisals and events can escalate. This is not the case with disablist hostility, since disabled people are often isolated, not part of a community, and possibly even isolated from their own families. Iganski’s (2008) study highlighted the opportunistic nature of most racist ‘hate crime’, everyday conflicts aggravated by racist hostility, often committed by ordinary people going about their ordinary business. The person who is attacked may recognise their attackers as being local. There does not seem to be any attempt to feign friendship in order to carry out this type of attack, nor to steal cash or goods. In comparison there are few recorded incidents of this kind against disabled people. However, there is a growing body of evidence, and growing media interest raising the profile of disablist hostility. There are reports of disabled people being subjected to opportunistic hostility, and of disabled people being singled out and victimisedGrattet and Jenness (2001) question the usefulness of a concept of crime whichis motivated by perceived difference. They question the benefits of emphasising what could be seen as a ‘special needs’ approach, since this reinforces, rather than alleviates, cultural differences between individuals in different social and administrative groups. But they also realise that treating people as if they are all the same does not challenge stereotypes and does not equalise people’s situation, creating a ‘dilemma of difference’. Reducing the issue to an individual level does not convey the influences of cultures, which allow and perpetuate the oppression of certain groups. Acts of hostility against disabled people on the street or in neighbourhoods, bullying and harassment – such as name calling, throwing missiles at individuals, or at their homes, indicate similarities with incidents which are recognised as ‘hate crime’ against other groups. These acts of hostility against a disabled person may not amount to crime, but nevertheless hurt psychologically and emotionally. A disabled person who has been attacked knows that they are more likely to be targeted again than a person without that characteristic (Macdonald, 2008); the cumulative effect is demonstrated in the case of Fiona Pilkington.