Motives, Reasons, and Responsibility in Hate/Bias Crime Legislation

Brax, David

doi:10.1080/0731129x.2016.1243826

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Criminological scholarship has repeatedly emphasized that, given the procedures and legal statutes available in a court room, hateful or discriminatory impulses and motivations behind criminal acts are "notoriously difficult to prove" (Kok 2008:446). Proving motive can effectively amount to the impossible task of proving a person's thoughts (Brax and Munthe 2012;Brax 2016). The challenge of substantively proving discrimination has even haunted the highest human rights courts (see Dembour et al 2021, on the European Court of Human Rights).…”

Section: Proving Prejudicementioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking the Atrocities Act: Proving Prejudice and Interpreting Evidence in Rajasthan

Fuchs¹

2022

samaj

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A recent outbreak of violent attacks against Dalits (ex-untouchables), and the release of discouraging statistics on caste atrocities, have brought India's judicial struggles to advance social equality and prevent discriminatory violence into sharp focus. The brutal fate of Manisha Valmiki, the 19-year-old gang-rape victim from Harthras, Uttar Pradesh, who succumbed to her injuries in September 2020, incensed Dalit communities across the country. The news of the cruel attack, and of the dubious subsequent police investigation, emerged just as data released by the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), showed that violence against Scheduled Castes (Dalits) and Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis) had increased significantly in many parts of India (Rupavath 2020). This lack of a transparent and consistent judicial response to identitybased violence is especially concerning since India instituted a unique legal safeguard against so-called hate or bias crimes over thirty years ago: the 1989 Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. 2The Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA) is one of the most ambitious examples of protectionist criminal legislation in India and worldwide. As India's only hate crime law (Citizens Against Hate 2018a), the PoA delineates enhanced punishments for certain crimes under the Indian Penal Code of 1860 (IPC) when they are committed against Dalits and Adivasis. Furthermore, the act outlaws specific discriminatory and untouchability-related offences or "atrocities" and imposes "positive duties" on public officials in atrocity investigations (Human Rights Watch 1998). However, the original authors of the PoA also articulated a broader socio-political vision for the act. P.S. Krishnan, Special Commissioner for SC/ST, former Secretary to the Ministry of Welfare, emphasized the act's unique, "socially transformative antidiscrimination agenda." He stressed that the aim of the PoA was to alleviate violent and discriminatory practices based on caste and indigenous identity in everyday Indian life. 1

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Section: Proving Prejudicementioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking the Atrocities Act: Proving Prejudice and Interpreting Evidence in Rajasthan

Fuchs¹

2022

samaj

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“…86 For this reason, the "hate" in hate crimes is often a misnomer. 87 Another variance is that some laws require that the perpetrator be motivated by animus (the subjective animus model), 88 whereas other laws are worded to capture the mere demonstration of hostility or prejudice (the objective animus model). The latter approach is far broader, and has been criticised, 89 as it includes cases where the offender may not have actually intended to commit the offence with a hostile motivation, but nevertheless demonstrated hostility during the commission of the offence.…”

Section: Hate-crime Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%