Victim Attributes in Hate Crime Law: Difference and the Politics of Justice

The legislative context of prejudice motivated victimisation: perceptions of police legitimacy and citizen decisions to report hate crime incidents

“…preceding specific hate crime laws, the United States started out with federal statutes directed to protect the rights of African Americans and other minority groups (Gerstenfeld, 2013;Mason, 2014d). In 1977, the Nationalist Socialist Party of America (NSPA) planned a demonstration in Skokie, Illinois that was met with public outcry from the village, which contained a large Jewish population and many Holocaust survivors (Gerstenfeld, 2011).…”

“…In the first half of the Twentieth century in Europe, discussions around hate crime legislation emerged in the context of international human rights treaties and domestic statutes set out to conquer victimisation and genocide of certain groups (Goodall, 2013;Mason, 2014d (Dixon & Gadd, 2006;Wright, 2010). In the 1990s, a rise in numbers of racist incidents provided the impetus for further legislative approaches concerning hate crime (Iganski, 1999a).…”

“…Since 2004, Western Australia is the only jurisdiction in Australia using this penalty enhancement model (Mason, 2009). Second, the sentence aggravation model allows for more judicial discretion, keeping the prejudice or bias motive in mind (Mason, 2009(Mason, , 2014d (Mason, 2009) and Victoria also has utilised this penal model since 2009 (Mason, 2014d;Mason & Dyer, 2013). Finally, the substantive offence model allows for elevation of a civil offence to a criminal offence for serious vilification under discrimination laws (Mason, 2009).…”

“…The offender profile -"young men, often working class, often acting in small groups, but not necessarily affiliated with organized hate" (Gerstenfeld, 2011, p. 265) -is similar in all five countries. According to Mason (2014d), Australia's hate crime legislation is fairly new and less comprehensive than its US, UK and Canadian counterparts.…”

“…Compared with PMC, non-PMC also has more potential targets (Gan et al, 2011). Mason (2014d) identifies three levels of harm to be considered, which include the individual victim, the targeted group and the community as a whole.…”