1/3 of Hate Crimes Committed by Friends, Care-givers & Family

Credit: University of Leicester

Grant, pictured above, is a victim of "disablist" hate crime. 
There is racism, sexism and now disablism combined with the attitude by some friends, family and care-givers that those with disabilities are fair game for acts of verbal and physical violence.

 As if that's not bad enough, research out of Leicester University in England reveals that one-third of hate crimes against the disabled come from people known to the victim, either friends, care givers or family.

 What is it within the human animal that causes hate crimes?  Why do people feel the need to act this way?  Is it organic to us?  Is it something we learn?

 I have to admit there are times I have thoughts and feelings that I'm not proud of, and I wouldn't want people to know about.  Do most people have the same?  If so, is it true that some people can't control their urges and act out in ways that hurt others, especially those not in a position to defend themselves?

 Here's the report, something to think about in your own life:


Friend or foe: 'Devastating' number 
of hate-fueled crimes are committed 
by friends, colleagues, carers of victims
People in trustworthy positions to victims, such as friends or carers, can be sources of cruelty and hate, a new study has concluded. Hate crime victims have recorded being tipped from wheelchairs, finding feces posted through letterboxes and having their guide dogs attacked, often by those that are closest to them. Many victims suffer in silence due to lack of knowledge of available support, say authors of a new report by researchers at the University of Leicester.

Suggested reading
These findings are the result of the two-year Leicester Hate Crime Project, the widest-ranging study of hate crime ever undertaken, which has highlighted that in over a third of cases offenders are known to the victim, either as acquaintances, neighbors, friends, work colleagues, family members or carers.

Stevie-Jade Hardy, the project's Lead Researcher, explained: "There has been a prevailing assumption that hate crimes are committed by strangers, far-right extremists or hate fueled individuals. However, this study shows that those who commit hate crimes are often ordinary people who are known to the victim and this was found to have a profoundly devastating emotional and physical impact on the victim."

The research, undertaken by a specialist research team based at the Department of Criminology at the University of Leicester and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), examined the nature and impact of hate crime and of victims' expectations of service providers.

The research team heard from nearly 1,500 victims targeted on the basis of their identity characteristics or perceived 'difference' and found that many felt vulnerable, depressed or suicidal as a result of hate crime.

Victims also felt neglected by support networks, with less than a quarter reporting their most recent experience of hate crime to the police, and fewer still reporting to other networks, organisations or individuals in a position of authority and trust.

Dr Neil Chakraborti, Reader in Criminology at the University of Leicester and the project's Principal Investigator, said: "Local authorities and police forces have worked hard to raise awareness of hate crime and of support mechanisms in place. However, we found that many of the 4,000 community members we engaged with had never even heard of the term 'hate crime'.

"Service providers must do more to treat victims with empathy, patience and humanity, to make reporting procedures more accessible, and to support victims from all sections of society."

Jon Garland, Co-Investigator on the project while at Leicester who is now a Reader in Criminology at the University of Surrey, added: "We need to make sure that victims of hate crime are treated appropriately and with care by agencies that should be there to help them. To this end, the project team has produced a Victims' Manifesto, based upon the views and wishes of the victims we've spoken to, that sets out ten key steps that can be taken to improve the support that victims receive.

"Our aim is to get as many organisations and individuals to sign up to the Manifesto as possible, so that we can begin to make a real and positive difference to the lives of those that suffer hate crime."
The Leicester Centre for Hate Studies, based at the University of Leicester, offers guidance on how to implement the recommendations from this research, and is encouraging professionals from all sectors to pledge support to the Victims' Manifesto so they can take strides to eliminate hate crime: Victim's Manifesto.

Further information about the study can be found here: Study information.

Watch an informative video by the research team about The Harms of Hate

Related posts:
*  *  *  *  *
Story Source: Materials provided by University of Leicester. "Friend or foe: 'Devastating' number of hate-fuelled crimes are committed by friends, colleagues, carers of victims." ScienceDaily, 21 September 2014.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An unexpected way to recover from a breakup

Image
Breaking up is truly hard to do. And recovery from a breakup can be even harder. Your friends may counsel you to put the whole thing out of your mind. But new research suggests that repeatedly reflecting on a break-up -- even through participation in a research study -- actually speeds emotional recovery. "Breakups are ubiquitous -- most adults have experienced at least one in their life -- and are typically very distressing," says Grace Larson of Northwestern University. After studying divorce and breakups for years using longitudinal, multi-method designs, Larson and her then-adviser David Sbarra of the University of Arizona wanted to study whether these research techniques on their own were affecting participants. One concern they had was that the studies could be harming participants, Larson says. "At first glance, it might seem like repeatedly reminding participants that they had just broken up -- and asking them to describe the breakup over and over --
Read more

Greek Bronze Age ended 100 years earlier than thought

Image
Source: www.shef.ac.uk The charred remains of Assiros Toumba in Greece. Writing historical fiction set in the Greek Bronze Age?  Or simply enjoy reading this genre'?  Here's a study you may find interesting. C onventional estimates for the collapse of the Aegean civilization may be incorrect by up to a century, according to new radiocarbon analyses. While historical chronologies traditionally place the end of the Greek Bronze Age at around 1025 BCE, this latest research suggests a date 70 to 100 years earlier. www.weather-forecast.com Archaeologists from the University of Birmingham selected 60 samples of animal bones, plant remains and building timbers, excavated at Assiros in northern Greece, to be radiocarbon dated and correlated with 95.4% accuracy using Bayesian statistical methodology at the University of Oxford and the Akademie der Wissenschaften Heidelberg, Germany. Researcher Dr Ken Wardle says, 'These new results tell a story that is totall
Read more

Mood Instability and Your Characters

Image
You're putting together a character who's mood simply bounces all over the place, happy one moment, in a fit of rage the next.  Researchers at King's College London note that this sort of mood instability is part of a number of mental health disorders.  So how do you structure the personality and behavior of a character like this?  Below is the King's College report, along with a brief description from mentalhealth.com, of typical behavior, sometimes in the extreme, of a person who is very emotionally unstable.  This is offered strictly as a guide for crafting character in fiction - and NOT for the amateur diagnosis of the state of someone's mental health.  That is always best left to trained professionals. Another note about emotionally unstable behavior:  as any parent will tell you, this is how adolescents and teen-agers often behave.  It's a normal part of growing up - but it is a matter of degree .  In the extreme, however, this behavior can be diag
Read more

How the lives of Georgian gaolbirds and highwaymen shaped modern Britain

Image
Writing historical fiction requires solid research of available materials and databases.  The key word here is available.   So news of a new publicly accessible database that allows an author to research a very interesting past era is priceless almost beyond words.   I expect some exciting fiction to come out of this announcement. Here's the story, with a link to the source in the attribution. *  *  *  *  * London Lives, a landmark project led by Professor Bob Shoemaker from the University of Sheffield and Professor Tim Hitchcock from the University of Sussex, has uncovered a mass of extraordinary new evidence which reveals how the lives of thousands of 18th-century poor and criminal Londoners helped shape modern Britain. Based on evidence made available in a publicly available database, the study sheds new light on the everyday lives of thieves, prostitutes, vagrants, highwaymen, con-men, paupers and jailbirds, revealing how their daily fight for survival led to t
Read more

Remember faces but not names? You got it wrong.

Image
Source:   Daily Excelsior So, you think you're good at remembering faces, but terrible with names? New research has revealed we are actually better at remembering names than faces The cringe-worthy experience of not being able to remember an acquaintance's name leads many of us to believe we are terrible with names. However, new research has revealed this intuition is misleading; we are actually better at remembering names than faces. With the Christmas party season fast approaching, there will be plenty of opportunity to re-live the familiar, and excruciatingly-awkward, social situation of not being able to remember an acquaintance's name. This cringe-worthy experience leads many of us to believe we are terrible at remembering names. However, new research has revealed this intuition is misleading; we are actually better at remembering names than faces. The authors of the study, from the University of York, suggest that when we castigate ourselves f
Read more