Hate Crime and the City: Lessons from London

The impression often conveyed by the media about hate crime offenders is that they are hate-fuelled individuals who, in acting out their extremely bigoted views, target their victims in premeditated violent attacks. Scholarly research on the perpetrators of hate crime has begun to provide a more nuanced picture. But the preoccupation of researchers with convicted offenders neglects the vast majority of hate crime offenders that do not come into contact with the criminal justice system.

This book, from a leading author in the field, widens understanding of hate crime by demonstrating that many offenders are ordinary people who offend in the context of their everyday lives. Written in a lively and accessible style, the book takes a victim-centred approach to explore and analyse hate crime as a social problem, providing an empirically informed and scholarly perspective. Aimed at academics and students of criminology, sociology and socio-legal studies, the book draws out the connections between the individual agency of offenders and the background structural context for their actions. It adds a new dimension to the debate about criminalising hate in light of concerns about the rise of punitive and expressive justice, scrutinizing the balance struck by hate crime laws between the rights of offenders and the rights of victims.

Paul Iganski is Emeritus Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Lancaster University Law School. Paul’s research raises awareness about the support needs of hate crime victims and offenders. He has collaborated with the equalities sector and many NGOs internationally, including the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Britain (EHRC), the Romanian Consiliul Național pentru Combaterea Discriminării, the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NIACRO), European Network Against Racism (ENAR), Minority Rights Group International, RAA Sachsen (Germany), Journalists for Tolerance (Belarus), and Campaign Against Homophobia (Poland).