Tackling Disability Discrimination and Disability Hate Crime

A Multidisciplinary Guide

Paul Giannasi, Robina Shah

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781849055284
• eBook ISBN: 9780857009418
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

Placing the experiences of victims at its heart, this book provides an authoritative overview of disability hate crime - explaining what it is, how it happens, its legal status, the impact on victims and how individuals and agencies should respond.

The guide outlines innovative projects developed to address the problem, and provides tailored guidance for professionals spanning education, health and social care, and criminal justice. It also offers recommendations for effective multi-agency working.

After highlighting the crimes committed against disabled people and society's failure to protect them, the book concludes with a powerful argument for cross-government action to improve professional practice and eliminate disability-motivated hate crime.

PART 1

WHAT IS DISABILITY
HATE CRIME?

CHAPTER 1

JOHNNY COME LATELY?

THE INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC POLICY
CONTEXT OF DISABILITY HATE CRIME

JEMMA TYSON, PAUL GIANNASI OBE
AND DR NATHAN HALL¹

In terms of understanding, awareness and legislation, disability hate crime is regarded by many as lagging behind other challenges such as racial and religious discrimination. However, with an emergent literature base and the exposure of high-profile crimes, such as those suffered by Brent Martin and Fiona Pilkington, there has emerged an increased pressure to introduce disability hate crime to the world of politics. Or, perhaps, to introduce politics to the world of disability hate crime. Either way, in doing so, this provides an essential stage to highlight the victimisation and ill-treatment that people with disabilities face, which seemingly occur on a daily basis, yet are frequently overlooked.

In this chapter we discuss the international and domestic policy context of disability hate crime and the significant differences between the two. When international comparisons are made, the UK has a far greater number of disability hate crimes committed than anywhere else in the world, at least officially. It would be naive to believe that such offences are not happening in other countries, yet questions remain about the causes of this disparity and in particular why there are such vast differences in levels of reporting and recording. The reasons behind the statistics of other countries – whether they are a result of societal ignorance or a lack of education and understanding – is a debate in itself, beyond the scope of this chapter. Rather, we consider the importance of ensuring that disability hate crime is viewed as a political priority if it is to be responded to appropriately.

In this regard, we argue that there has been a shift in focus within the UK that has led to disabled people’s organisations and more generally victims increasing pressure on the authorities, in particular the UK government, to make disability hate crime a political priority. Elsewhere in this book, Giannasi (Chapter 3) discusses the addition of ‘disability’ to the UK’s national hate crime policy, demonstrating a political acknowledgement of the issue in response to high-profile crimes. We will suggest that whilst the UK is not perfect in its responses to disability hate crime, in many ways those responses can be viewed, comparatively at least, as examples of best practice.

This book provides an abundance of information surrounding disability hate crime and is one of a limited number of publications that does. However, without any policy recognition of this issue, from an international and domestic perspective, these efforts are likely to be fruitless and made in vain. It is this political prioritisation, provided that it is sustained, that we expect to be the catalyst for significant improvements in the ways in which disability hate crimes are responded to.

Johnny come lately? Disability hate crime on (or off) the international stage

Perhaps unsurprisingly, and reflective of our choice of title for this chapter, information concerning the extent and nature of disability hate crime around the world is hard to find. Although organisations such as Human Rights Watch² document human rights abuses against people with disabilities in a number of countries around the world, specific data is rare. This is starkly illustrated by the hate crime reports of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE – the world’s largest regional security organisation, with members from 57 States across Europe, Central Asia and North America).

In 2012, only 14 of the 56 participating OSCE States (the fifty-seventh and most recent State to join, Mongolia, was not included in this report) recorded data on crimes against people with disabilities. However, at the time the report was written in November 2013, Finland, Germany and the UK were the only participating States that had provided data for 2012, recording 19, 29 and 1853 respectively (OSCE 2013). Furthermore, unlike other recognised strands of hate crime, the OSCE received no information from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) relating to crimes or incidents motivated by bias against people with disabilities. Moreover, the FBI (2013) reported just 58 disability hate crimes across the whole of the US, a country with seven times the population of the UK.

The new kid in town: the arrival of disability hate crime as a UK policy concern

So, why is it that the UK, officially at least, records far more disability hate crimes than anywhere else, and how did we get to the position where this situation now exists? In no small part, the answer lies in an event completely unrelated to disability hate crime that took place in London on the night of 22 April 1993.

Twenty years ago, black teenager Stephen Lawrence was murdered in Eltham, south-east London. For those of us involved in hate crime scholarship and those involved in criminal justice policy and practice in the UK, this was undoubtedly our watershed moment. The murder, and in particular the public inquiry that was published in 1999 with damning conclusions and sweeping recommendations for change, went far beyond just issues of policing. With the benefit of hindsight, this was the single most important event in bringing issues of hate crime to the forefront in the UK.

This was not just because of the inquiry’s focus on racism, victimisation and the responses to it, and not just because of the far-reaching implications for change that it was to have across the board, but also because the Lawrence’s fight with ‘the system’ has left a legacy that has allowed other voices to be heard where they previously would not have been. Ultimately, a deep sense of injustice relating to racism and the unwavering commitment of Doreen and Neville Lawrence in their search for truth has opened the door for the proper and formal recognition of other forms of targeted victimisation, giving us our academic and political focus on what we now call ‘hate crime’.

This shift is evident in the attention now paid by scholars, researchers, law and policy makers and practitioners alike to hate crimes motivated by prejudices other than just race, often themselves highlighted by high-profile and tragic cases. Such examples include, but are not limited to, the manslaughter of Johnny Delaney in Cheshire in 2003, the murder of Sophie Lancaster in Lancashire in 2007 (which have respectively served to bring Gypsy and Irish Traveller and ‘alternative lifestyle’ issues to the forefront), the homophobic murder of Jody Dobrowski in London in 2005 and a number of murders and other serious offences against people with disabilities, which are discussed later in this book (see Chapter 16). In addition to the response to high-profile crimes, Mason-Bish (2010) rightly states that the role of various campaign groups has also been central to the way that policy has developed in the UK in recent years. The victim groups included in the formal definitions of hate crime represent those who have activists and campaigners working on their behalf, many of whom will have benefited either directly or indirectly from the efforts of the Lawrence family.

More recently, a key milestone in the development of disability as part of hate crime policy has been the inquiry of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) into the harassment of disabled people. The inquiry, which reported initially in September 2011, is discussed in detail in this book (see Chapter 2) but it is worthy of mention here because of the impact it had on raising awareness of the problems faced by disabled people and the focus it brought to the governments of England, Wales and Scotland as well as the agencies and authorities who have the responsibility of protecting the community from harm.

The first steps on a long journey?

Hall (2013) has reflected upon the progress made in the UK in furthering the hate crime agenda and upon the ‘paradigm shift’ that he suggests has taken place since the publication of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. He suggests that:

the outcomes of this ‘paradigm shift’ in terms of radically changing the goals of policy and practice, which in many ways is still in progress, can be seen in the range of outcomes that to me set the UK apart from its international counterparts… In comparative terms, then, in my view the UK is the ‘world leader’ in terms of responding to hate crimes. (Hall 2013, p.198)

Arguably, however, the key word in the quotation above is ‘comparative’. Given the OSCE data above, it is clear that more disability hate crimes come to the attention of the authorities in the UK than anywhere else. Indeed the official figure in England and Wales reported above represents an almost 150 per cent increase since data was first collected in 2008. Arguably, this is a product of the increased attention that has been drawn to the issue of disability victimisation in recent years, culminating in the EHRC’s inquiry published in 2012, and the inevitable resulting pressure for those in authority to respond to this emerging social problem.

Whilst this is of course a cause for some optimism, it is clear that there can be no room for complacency. Behind the ‘headline’ figure of 1853 recorded disability hate crimes recorded nationally in 2012/13, there is a worrying disparity across police forces. For example, Leicestershire Police (the force covering the area where Fiona Pilkington was victimised) recorded 188 disability hate crimes whilst in the same period the Metropolitan Police in London (with a population of over seven million people) recorded 85. Rather disturbingly, 11 forces across England and Wales recorded fewer than ten disability hate crimes each (ACPO 2014).

Of course one might suggest that these low figures are simply because disability hate crimes don’t occur in those areas, but to suggest as much would, to our minds, demonstrate a woeful ignorance of the realities of the situation. Indeed, it is starkly apparent from the research undertaken by various disability-related organisations and others that disability-related harassment remains vastly under-reported. For example, a study by Mind (2007) found that, with reference to people with mental health problems, 71 per cent of respondents had been victimised in the community at least once in the previous two years; 41 per cent were victims of ongoing bullying; 22 per cent had been physically assaulted; 27 per cent had been sexually harassed; and 34 per cent had been victims of theft. Crucially, the reporting of these incidents was low and a finding that perhaps helps to explain the levels of under-reporting is that 64 per cent of victims reported being dissatisfied with the overall response they received from the authorities. These findings are not unique, with other studies in the field reporting similarly (see, for example, DRC 2004; Mind 2007; Mencap 2007; Quarmby 2008; EHRC 2012).

Numerically speaking, however, the extent of the problem of under-reporting is most brutally apparent from the data provided by the British Crime Survey, now known as the Crime Survey of England and Wales (Smith et al. 2012) which estimates that around 65,000 disability hate crimes occur annually. This huge ‘dark figure’ of unreported, or at least unrecorded, disability hate crime, coupled with an ever expanding research base reveals the considerable barriers that victims with disabilities face when trying to access justice. This makes it clear that despite the progress made, and notwithstanding comparative advances, the journey ahead for the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Of Related Interest
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Part 1 What is Disability Hate Crime?
• Part 2 Disability Hate Crime – The Impact on Victims
• Part 3 Disability Hate Crime – Lessons from Other Disciplines
• Part 4 How to Respond to Disability Hate Crime
• Contributor Profiles
• Subject Index
• Author Index