BSC Hate Crime & Policing Networks Conference on “Hate Crime Perpetrators"

BSC Hate Crime & Policing Networks Conference: “Hate Crime Perpetrators: The Effectiveness of Criminal Justice Responses” 

A one-day hybrid conference organised by the BSC Hate Crime Network and BSC Policing Network, hosted by the NTU Hate Crime Research Group at Nottingham Trent University. The aim of this conference is to examine the motivations of hate crime perpetrators and the effectiveness of Criminal Justice responses to hate crime offending. The conference is targeted at academics, PGR candidates, researchers, policy makers, practitioners, professionals and interested others. There is no fee for the conference registration. 

Any queries can be directed to Dr Irene Zempi (email: irene.zempi@ntu.ac.uk)

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Programme

9.30 – 10.00 Registration and Refreshments

10:00 – 10:15 Welcome – Dr Rachel Keighley, Chair of BSC Hate Crime Network 

10:15 – 11:00 Plenary Lecture

Professor Jon Garland, University of Surrey – 'Developing an Understanding of Hate Crime Perpetration and Criminal Justice Responses: Where Are We Now?'

11:00 – 12.30 Panel Session 1: Hate crime offenders: Motivations, context and typologies of offending

Chair: Dr David Wilkin

Dr Kate Barber, University of Reading – ‘Female Privilege’ and the ‘Matriarchy’: Examining Legal Cynicism in Men’s Rights Discourses as a Driver of Sexual Violence Against Women

Abstract: 'Legal cynicism' refers to a type of legal disengagement associated with a lack of internal commitment to follow legal rules and acknowledge legal authority, typically stemming from perceived ongoing injustices and rights deprivations (Rottweiler & Gill 2022: 1489). This perception of the criminal justice system enables individuals to rationalise criminal actions, leading to an increased propensity for violent behaviour (Nivette et al 2017; Rottweiler & Gill 2022). Effectively identifying content such as this within online discourses has been argued to be the initial step in combatting radical belief systems (Scrivens et al 2024: 2). Using a corpus of online discourses produced by Men’s Right’s Activists (MRAs) - a misogynistic community broadly associated with the manosphere – this paper examines the presence and drivers of legal cynicism to denigrate both the criminal justice system and women in sexual violence cases. Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches, two main areas of inquiry are presented: 1) the ways in which the criminal justice systems in both the United States and United Kingdom are reframed to embed legal cynicism in MRA discourses; 2) the specific evidential and legal processes highlighted as problematic by MRAs. The findings indicate that disinformation and misinterpretations of legal process, new laws on evidence and procedure, and recent policies encouraging women to report sexual violence sustain legal cynicism and narratives of threat. The complexities of legal systems are found to foster conspiratorial beliefs around the motivations behind policies to remove barriers to reporting sexual crimes. Further, constructs of feminist bias and of a "man-hating legal system" generate a perceived targeting of men. The paper discusses the impact of this reframing of the criminal justice system on the potential for violence through legal disengagement and acknowledges the necessity to address issues raised in the MRA discourses (Gotell & Dutton 2016).

Paper 2: Dr Jane Healy, Bournemouth University and Dr Valerie Houghton, Edinburgh Napier University – “Developing a profile of disablist hate crime offenders”

Abstract: Disabled people are more likely to be victims of crime, and regularly report experiences such as harassment, intimidation, and exploitation, within their communities, in their local neighbourhoods, and on public transport. Perpetrators are known and unknown, including strangers, neighbours, members of their community, and people they live with. Consequently, most disabled people live in fear, limit their activities, are less trusting of others, and avoid ‘risky’ situations. This presentation considers what we know about disablist hate crime offenders, by exploring the situated actions and reactions of these offenders and their victims, drawing on research conducted by Jane and Valerie. It contributes to the gap in current evidence on disablist hate crime perpetrators, using data from several research projects to interrogate the processes involved in disablist targeting. Although disablist acts are committed by different people for different reasons, this presentation presents a framework to aid current understanding of disablist offending, in conceptualising disablist hate crime through interactions and relationships; exploitation and dehumanisation; escalations of abuse, and perpetrator motivations. It then compares this profile of disablist hate to existing hate crime perpetrator frameworks and offers a fresh contribution to the evidence base for recognising, preventing, and interrupting disablist hate crime.

Paper 3: Mark Rusling, Head of Training at Antisemitism Policy Trust – “Breaking the Cycle? Learning from the past to improve the present”

Abstract: This is an analysis of the Breaking The Cycle programme developed and delivered at the UK’s National Holocaust Museum. The programme uses the example of the Holocaust to influence the behaviour and attitudes of contemporary hate crime perpetrators, who are referred to the Museum by Nottinghamshire Police. We have recently revised the programme to draw more authentic links between attitudes that facilitated the Holocaust and the motivations behind the behaviour of individuals who participate in the programme. The revised programme focuses on individual perpetrators, rather than macro-history, and chooses a historical period which is indicative of the process of individual and societal radicalisation, rather than the final genocidal result. Our approach is based less on ‘lessons from’ history, and more on using history to encourage critical thinking about individual behaviour in the present. This paper uses this example to suggest lessons for other programmes which seek to use the past to influence the present.

Paper 4: Professor Nicole L Asquith, University of Tasmania and Dr Justin Ellis, University of Newcastle – “The NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes (1970-2010) and offender accountability” [ONLINE]

Abstract: Special commissions of inquiry and royal commissions are symptomatic of structural biases that require powers over and above the status quo to address injustice. But inquiries that seek to scrutinise historical hate crimes and identify offenders’ bias can be a race against time. Drawing on the New South Wales Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes 1970-2010 (SCOI), this paper considers the role of such inquiries in achieving offender accountability in the absence of robust policing and prosecutorial processes at the time of the 91 homicides. SCOI Commissioner Justice John Sackar reiterated in his concluding remarks that the objective of the SCOI was “to provide some recognition of the truth” for LGBTIQ victims in cases where “the response of the community, of society, [and] of its institutions to these deaths was sadly lacking”. We take this remark as our starting point in analysing the SCOI’s effectiveness on seven measures that are considered to be beneficial outcomes of special commissions and royal commissions, and their capacity to identify and address offenders’ bias. In addition to independently gathering and investigating new evidence of offenders’ motivation, these types of inquiries provide an opportunity to engage people excluded from previous investigations (such as families and friends), and create authoritative and transparent records of systemic failures, corruption, and historical injustices. Inquiries, unlike individual prosecutions, can also identify and promote systematic reforms, and ideally, restore public trust through transparent processes and validation of victim experiences. In the absence of sufficient hate crime prosecutions in Australia, the SCOI has provided an alternative form of justice, increased public awareness of hate crimes, and enhanced the system’s capacity to bring offenders to account.

Panel members: 4 papers (15 min per paper & 30 min for Q&A: 15 min from online attendees and 15 min from in person attendees)

12.30 – 14:00 Networking Lunch (free lunch provided)

14:00 – 15:30 Panel Session 2: Responses to Hate crime offending

Chair: Dr Alexandra Neag

 Paper 1: Professor Loretta Trickett, NTU – “Improving policing through hate crime risk assessment”

Abstract: Risk assessments (RA), tools designed to assess a victim’s risk of potential future victimisation, have been in use in policing for some time now. In particular, they have been used in domestic violence cases to assist police in determining levels of immediate risk to the victim as well as risk of potential future harm. These tools have been useful in assisting police with not only determining the type of resources necessary for safekeeping, but in conveying to police the gravity and seriousness of the harm. While (RA) have proven useful in improving police response in domestic violence case, RAs have so far not been used extensively in the area of hate crime response. Drawing on interviews with police officers participating in a pilot project in Nottingham England where RA were used in hate crime incidents, this paper argues that these tools have great potential to vastly improve on-the-ground police response to hate crime victims and to assist with deepening police officer understandings of the harms of hate which is key to ensuring good response. Given the current landscape of escalating rates of hate crime, low levels of confidence in police and dissatisfaction among hate crime victims, the use of RAs is particularly timely.

Paper 2: Dr Megan McElhone, Monash University, “Anti-Muslim hate and Britain’s racial order: political relations and institutional responses”

Abstract: More than a decade ago, Patel and Tyrer (2011, p. 33) contended that ‘in order to understand the place of hate in contemporary racism, we need to reconsider its centrally affective nature, and acknowledge that it is above all, a political relation’. Taking inspiration from Patel and Tyrer’s work, the purpose of this paper is to conceptualise hate as a political relation in modern Britain. The paper takes as its focus Islamophobia or anti-Muslim hate, and its co-constitution with essentialist accounts of white working-class racism. How do dominant political ideologies, discourses, and practices sustain this politics of hate and its accompanying racial order? What role do institutions like the police and courts play in this? How can consideration of affect add complexity and nuance to our understanding of how hate figures into Britain’s racial order? And what are the implications for our understandings of the efficacy of legislative and police responses to anti-Muslim hate crimes?

Paper 3: Dr Daisy Matthews, NTU and Dr Larissa Sandy, University of Nottingham, “Creating hostile environments: Reframing sex work as a form of violence against women”

Abstract: The Nordic Model frames sex work as a form of violence against women and girls and as female sexual exploitation. Central to this framework are ideas of sex work shaped around violence and exploitation that are used to create environments hostile to sex work, and in particular sex workers’ clients, while ‘deserving’ sex workers are traumatised and exploited victims. This paper attempts to critically understand the motivational factors encouraging the creation of societies hostile to sex work under the Nordic Model and how this affects attitudes towards the practice in terms of hateful and discriminatory behaviour, further compounding the ‘othering’ of sex workers that perpetuates their social exclusion and how policy contexts can both cause and enact (or constitute) harm.

Paper 4: PhD candidate Tiana Gaudette & Assistant Professor Ryan Scrivens, Michigan State University, “Pathways Out of Hate Groups: Trends in the Empirical Literature and Future Directions” [ONLINE]

Abstract: Research on pathways in and out of hate groups has tended to focus on processes of radicalization – particularly the motivations for individuals joining violent hate groups and hate movements in general. Yet over the past two decades, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers have increasingly turned their attention to how, why, and when individuals leave hate groups in an effort to develop a more nuanced understanding of these complex processes. Despite this increased attention, much less is known about why individuals leave hate groups than why they join them. Little is also known about how processes of disengagement and deradicalization interact when leaving hate groups. We examine the growing body of research that has drawn from the insights of former extremists to generate knowledge on pathways out of hate groups. Suggestions for progressing research on pathways out of hate groups is also discussed.

Panel members: 4 papers (15 min per paper & 30 min for Q&A: 15 min from online attendees and 15 min from in person attendees)

15:40 – 16.00 Close – Dr Alexandra Neag, Co-Chair of BSC Policing Network