Transcript Moran, L, 'Policing and Prosecuting Hate Crime in the UK' (2009 Hate Crime and Vilification Law Roundtable, Sydney Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, 29 August 2009).

Hate Crime Seminar
University of Sydney
Friday 28th August 2009
Policing and prosecuting Hate Crime in the UK
Professor Leslie J. Moran
School of Law
Birkbeck College, University Of London
[email protected]
Law reform and/or
Institutional change
• Emphasis has been on law reform focusing on perpetrator
– Crime and Disorder Act 1989 New offences –
• racially aggravated offences (ss 28-32)
• Sentence enhancement provisions (s.33)
– Criminal Justice Act 2003 (s142)
• Sentence enhancement applied to sexual orientation, disability
– Incitement to religious hatred Act 2006
– Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 cl 61.
Institutional Change: Institutional change
and citizen engagement MPS
Law reform?
Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000
s.1 Discrimination by police...
ss2 a) duty to eliminate b) promote equality of opportunity and good relations
Institutional change
• Racial and violent crime task force
• ACPO Guide
• Advisory Groups
• Territorial Policing, Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate
• Borough Command Units, Community Safety Units,
• Neighbourhood policing.
• Understanding and Responding to Hate Crime
Institutional focus
MPS data 12 months till Jul 09
• Hate Crimes
– Racial
– Homphobic
9,509
1,118
• Domestic violence 53,477
• All crime
842,484
(+3.8)
(+9.7)
(+3.7)
(-3.7)
Prosecuting Hate Crime
•
•
•
•
CPS – statutory charging
Policies and annual monitoring
Targets (28%)
stakeholder review
Ongoing challenges
Policing
• Marginal victims: ‘real crime’, low level, messy, ‘want it to stop’
• Marginal key workers; feminisation of work (Foster, Newman and Souhami 2005)
• Resource and skill fragmentation (Mason 2006, Moran and Sharpe 2004, Jacobs and
Potter 1998)
• Institutional models and expectations:
–
–
–
multiple and contradictory expectations (Steve Herbert 2006)
Subservient, (bottom up)
Separation/professional, (top down)Ownership Limits of the state (Garland 1996, 2001)
• Research: Biography of a complaint
• CPS/Police interface