Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to fill a research and literature gap by examining the nature and impact of hate crime victimisation on police officers, and their responses to it. The research explores victimisation due to the occupational stigma of policing and the personal characteristics and identities of individual officers.Design/methodology/approachThe research design is qualitative, based on 20 in-depth interviews with police officers in one English police force. Thematic analysis was applied to the data.FindingsAll participants had experienced hate crime arising from their occupational or personal identities. Initially shocked, officers became desensitized and responded in different ways. These include tolerating and accepting hate crime but also challenging it through communication and the force of law.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is based on a small sample. It does not claim to be representative but it is exploratory, aiming to stimulate debate and further research on a contemporary policing issue.Practical implicationsIf further research works were to confirm these findings, there are implications for police training, officer welfare and support, supervision and leadership.Originality/valueThe police occupy a problematic position within hate crime literature and UK legislation. This paper opens up debate on an under-researched area and presents the first published study of the hate crime experiences of police officers.
Highlights
When policing features in hate crime debates, it mainly focuses on the service provided to victims; the experiences of police officers as victims of hate crime remain invisible in research terms
Concluding Comments While there has been an increased interest in the experiences of ideal victims of hate crime, relatively little is known about police officers who experience hate crime because of the intersectionality between their stigmatised professional identity and personal identities
This paper has presented some of the findings from, as far as can be established, the first ever study examining the experiences of police officers as hate crime victims
Summary
When policing features in hate crime debates, it mainly focuses on the service provided to victims; the experiences of police officers as victims of hate crime remain invisible in research terms. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 20 participants based in one English police force, the ‘dirty work’ and hate crime literatures are used to understand the targeted victimisation of police officers, both on an individual and group level. There is little agreement on whether anyone can be the victim of a hate crime or whether it should be restricted to members of historically marginalised and disadvantaged minority groups (Chakraborti and Garland, 2015). Even in the case of minority groups, there is much debate surrounding which ones should be covered by hate crime legislation, with some countries, such as Austria, restricting it to rather narrow boundaries of race, religion and ethnicity, whilst others, such as Belgium, are expanding the umbrella to include factors such as political conviction, wealth and health (Garland and Chakraborti, 2012)
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