Hate crimes

[MooncupGoddess]

In the news today that murder of disabled or transgender people triggered by prejudice against that group will face much harsher sentencing, to bring them into line with murders linked to racial/religious/sexual orientation prejudice.

Now, I have never been a great fan of hate crime legislation - I don't see why killing someone because they're gay is worse than killing someone because you think they gave you a nasty look in the pub, or because they've got in the way while you're burgling their house. Each is a heinous crime.

However, if this approach is going to be implemented across the board then surely women should be included? Are there not many more murders of women by men (which would not have been committed if the victim hadn't been a woman) than there are other hate-inspired murders?

From the article: 'Clarke said that hate crime left sections of society living in fear and at risk of unprovoked violence.' Are there not thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of women living in just these conditions, for fear of vile men? Why does shouting 'take that you dirty gay' at someone you're stabbing add 15 years to your sentence when 'take that you dirty whore' doesn't?

Mooncup I read this yesterday and had exactly the same thought.

I have no idea whether killing a woman because she is a woman is classified as a hate crime in this way.

I am also not convinced about the way hate crimes are being defined here - as if it's less bad to kill a member of one group because of hate than another group.

Because women aren't really human.

What happens to men is real, what happens to women doens't matter.

Oh here we go

"The Ministry of Justice plans to amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003 so that murders motivated by hatred or hostility towards disabled or transgender victims will have the same starting point as for murders aggravated by race, religion and sexual orientation. This will double the current starting point for disability and transgender hate crime murders.

The Act will also be updated so that where any offence is shown to be motivated by hostility towards the victim on the grounds of transgender, as well as race, religion, sexual orientation, and disability, sentences must be made more severe. This will mean all five monitored strands of hate crime will be reflected equally in these provisions. "

from here

Why is sex/gender not included in the list?

It sounds from the report as if this is just a change in the sentencing guidelines for the murder of disabled and transgendered people.

It goes nowhere near as far as the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which specifically refers to a list of racially and religiously aggravated crimes - actual bodily harm, common assault, criminal damage, public order offences and harrassment, alarm and distress. (according to Wikipedia)

Personally I would like to see all "hate crimes brought under the same umbrella, and yes, include gender.

I mean seriously, because sex is included under discrimination laws as a "protected characteristic" so it's not an outlandish idea.

Agree SQ.

According to Wiki, 'the Spanish Penal Code includes a penalty-enhancement provision for crimes motivated by bias against the victim's ideology, beliefs, religion, ethnicity, race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, illness, or disability', and Croatia includes victim's sex in the list too. No other European countries seem to.

People just don't want to think about men systematically hating and being violent to women, do they?

onehandflapping see above link, disability / transgender being included in law in same way as race etc.

Sex is not on the list.

I don't understand why not? Thunderbolts yes I see your post but the law lords or whoever couldn't sit down and say "ah yes we'll leave sex off as women don't matter". Surely this is a glaring omission?

So eg when I was young there was a man going around on the underground throwing acid over blonde women. It struck me because I was a blonde girl and I thought how awful that someone is targeting women in this way and it was scary.

How is something like that not a hate crime in the same way as these other attacks?

Sorry to go on but I think this really highlights just how crap things are regarding women in the UK and it makes me feel angry and upset.

It's just so blatent.

Quite so. Imagine how revolutionary it would be, if every crime committed by men against women out of woman-hatred was subject to penal sentencing?

How come attitudes to gay, ethnic-minority and transgender people have changed so quickly for the better, but attitudes to women haven't?

It is ridiculous.

I imagine the reason is because so many crimes would come into that category, and a whole load of men would have to be given harsher sentences in future thus increasing the prison population when the authorities are desperately trying to get it down? Or something.

And won't this potentially mean that someone accused of stabbing a trans woman could defend themselves by insisting they didn't realise the victim was trans? 'It's not a hate crime, your Honour, because I hate all women, not just ones who were born male.' It's a bit through-the-looking-glass.

You know what though, I bet it would only take one woman committing unprovoked violent attacks on random men and they would make gender-based attacks hate crimes quickly enough.

"And won't this potentially mean that someone accused of stabbing a trans woman could defend themselves by insisting they didn't realise the victim was trans? 'It's not a hate crime, your Honour, because I hate all women, not just ones who were born male.' It's a bit through-the-looking-glass."

Oooooh

Yes that's very true. Although I think that for hate crime you have to show that the incident was based on hatred so I think the attacker would've had to know the person was trans IYSWIM.

What if some men think a person is a MTF trans-sexual and attack for that reason and then it turns out that the attacked person is actually a bog-standard woman.

What then? Not hate after all?

What is the scale of the problem that the proposed change to murder tariffs is supposed to address? How many people are murdered per year in England and Wales because they are transgendered or disabled?

I expect the number to be very small in comparison to other motives. (Obviously, one is too many). I wonder if a reason for these proposals is because it is a small number, an "easy win" for the politicians.

To address the more widespread problem of men murdering women (who happen to be neither transgendered nor disabled) is too big a problem for the current crop of politicians.

I found some statistics about the murder or transgendered people.

According to a survey reported in 2009 by Transgender Europe (TGEU) and Liminalis ? a Journal for Sex/Gender Emancipation and Resistance :

"very preliminary results have revealed 121 cases of reported murdered trans people in 2008 worldwide. From January 2009 to June 2009 already 83 cases of murdered trans people have been reported worldwide."

None of the 204 murders reported in that 18-month worldwide survey occurred in England or Wales, although the case referred to in the linked Guardian article in the OP did occur in late 2009, shortly after the survey end date.

(Most transgender murder victims are prostitutes in Brazil, where their risk of being murdered is 259 times greater than for homosexuals).

To address the more widespread problem of men murdering women (who happen to be neither transgendered nor disabled) is too big a problem for the current crop of politicians.

Exactly.

And because it would involve dispassionately criticizing entire cultures and histories and assumptions and vast property and economic interests and industries that can - and do - silence voices that point out what's often blatantly obvious about them but also entirely normalised.

How many ambitious, mainstream politicians are actually prepared to do that?

Can we do anything to get sex/ gender added to the list of crimes it's possible to feel hate about?

Joanna Yates was murdered because she was a woman. All the victims of Peter Sutcliffe were murdered, because they were women. If we could do a list of very obvious hate crimes against women and send it to the men who define what a hate crime is (and oh look, it is men, isn't it?) it might at least get the ball rolling on discussing misogyny as a real existing thing.

thunderboltsandlightening

Because women aren't really human.

What happens to men is real, what happens to women doens't matter.

Well if you go through life spouting that drivel to everything then you will never amount to very much...

I think the omission of gender-based hate crimes just highlights how stupid the legislation is (IMO). We have different levels of crime for different levels of killing (e.g. manslaughter, murder) and that to me is more important than the reason the person killed. Premeditated murder is surely a hate crime in any circumstance? The reason for the hatred shouldn't matter when it comes to sentencing (of course if the murderer holds any belief so strongly that he is at risk of offending again that is a matter for the parole board to decide whether or not it is safe to release him).

This is interesting because in some Latin American countries there is currently a drive to introduce the crime of "femicide" in the penal code. Some places have already implemented such legislation, including for example Mexico City.
I totally share Mooncup's questioning of the idea of hate crime legislation in general. On the subject of the femicide laws in Mexico City, for example, the introduction of the idea of a murder "done for reasons of the victim's gender" has not been received with much enthusiasm by lawyers who study hate crime against women. They point out that the introduction of such crimes makes convicting a murderer even more difficulty since it becomes a case not just of showing that they murdered the person in question, but also to prove that the murder was committed because of reasons concerning the victim's gender. The Mexican law system -for example- is very bad at proscuting murders, rapists and kidnappers without added difficulties being created. (Watch a recent documentary film Presunto culpable (Presumed Guilty) if you you want to see the Mexican judicial system in action).
My attitude towards the Mexican situation -and the UK one- is quite simple. It matters not why someone was killed; it matters successfully prosecuting and imprisoning the guilty party, quickly and efficiently. I think the recent murder case of Joanne Yates shows that the British system for all its many faults is capable of this. The ridiculously high numbers of women murdered and whose murderers are never even properly looked for, let alone prosecuted, is an inditement of the poor poor nature of the Mexican system, with all it's laws on femicide.