Hate crime in the EU
Following the recent depressing inspection report that found British criminal justice agencies are doing very little to tackle disability hate crime, I thought it might be interesting to look more generally at the prevalence of hate crime within the European Union.
As you can see from the infographic reproduced below, even with the acknowledged under-reporting of hate crimes, the figures are extremely worrying. In surveys undertaken by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA):
- 1 in 3 Jewish people had faced verbal or physical violence
- 1 in 4 LGPT suffered violence
- 1 in 5 Roma had been victims of hate crimes
You can follow the European Agency for Fundamental Rights @EURightsAgency on Twitter.
2 responses
Good article Russell and the language of awareness, building trust and recording is positive. Setting out hate crime in criminal law has had a positive effect in the same way as mandating seatbelts did – it lowers our tolerance to racism, xenophobia and effectively counters some of the Daily Mail propaganda more generally. However, I’m concerned about unintended consequences of overusing the Diversity Stick to beat people up. Less serious convictions with aggravated hate crime labels can potentially reinforce attitudes of hate and the consequences of a hate crime for people seeking employment are off the scale. I’d be interested in good evidence on what policies and interventions are most effective in tackling attitudes of hate.
Thanks for such an interesting comment, Richard. I do agree that the law can be an important tool but only within an overall culture change as this week’s tragic murder of Lee Irving is just one example.