Module SOCI3627: Hate crime: Understandings and Responses

Department: Sociology

SOCI3627: Hate crime: Understandings and Responses

Prerequisites

• At least 20 credits of level 2 modules from the Department of Sociology.

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To provide students with theoretical and empirical tools to critically understand and analyse hate crime, including research into its different dimensions, prevalence, causes, and wider contexts, drawing on national and international literature.
• To particularly consider an applied sociological perspective on factors within wider society that may affect hate crime prevalence and practice, including understanding the connections between criminalising and reporting hate motivated behaviours and larger societal events (such as Brexit, nationally reported incidents of violence, broader social trends towards inclusion, tolerance, anti-discrimination).
• To critically analyse a range of responses – including those within social policy and criminal justice policy, and those implemented by the police, community and third sector organisations and individuals who have been victimised - and identify best policy and practice approaches to addressing hate-motivated criminal behaviour.

Content

• After an introductory lecture, there will be three blocks of lectures: defining, reporting, responding to hate crime. Using the work of Goffman, Chakrobarti and Garland, Perry, Orton, Brown, Browne, Macdonald, Clayton and Donovan .
• Defining:-
• History of hate crime legislation: drivers, historical and societal context, legal definitions – of hate crime and of protected strands drawing on writers such as Chakrobarti and Garland, and comparative work by wider international bodies (e.g. Council of Europe, OSCE ODIHR).
• Theoretical discussion of how hate is conceptualised: individualised in the pathology of the offender; sociologically in the historically-arising social structural, political and cultural inequalities. We will also consider differences between the protections available to different social groups, particularly considering the British and wider European contexts.
• Making distinctions between hate incidents and hate crime, using local, national and European surveys to consider patterns and trends longitudinally and across the protected strands.
• Reporting:-
• Drawing from empirical work to consider reasons for:
• low reporting;
• repeat reporting;
• differences between levels of reporting through different routes, and using different definitions;
• including the work of Donovan, Clayton and Macdonald to consider hate relationships.
• This will include consideration of the ‘costs’ of reporting and reasons why most people don’t: the normalisation of everyday violence.
• Responding:-
• In this block we critically consider whether criminalisation is the best way to deal with hate crime and explore alternatives to it. These include drawing on wider approaches to tackling underlying prejudice and discrimination drawing on insights from wider sociological, social policy and professional community work perspectives, particularly those exploring practical interventions which seek to prevent and intervene in local social contexts where hate crime is prevalent, whilst simultaneously addressing associated structural factors. We also draw comparisons with concepts from the field of domestic violence to consider the impacts of hate crime on individuals’ self-esteem, agency and victim identity. We explore how reporting might be experienced as an act of a transformative identity as opposed to a stigmatised identity (Goffman) and the potential for empowerment and social change that might be harnessed in responses that move beyond those just based within the criminal justice system.

Learning Outcomes

• Upon successful completion of this module, students will have demonstrated:
• An understanding of key theories about hate, discrimination and prejudice, and their relationship to hate crime.
• Knowledge about key contemporary and classic research within related fields of academic research.
• Understanding contemporary debates within hate studies and related policy and practice fields about defining, reporting and responding to hate.

• Upon successful completion of this module, students will have demonstrated:
• Analysis and selection of critical tests and research in the field of hate studies.
• Ability to make distinctions between different theoretical approaches to hate.
• Ability to critically understand the links between different theoretical approaches to hate and the policy and practice responses that follow from them.

• Upon successful completion of this module, students will have demonstrated:
• Critical analysis of academic research, theory, and policy/practice responses.
• Application of academic theory and research to everyday representations of hate

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Workshops: These will introduce and engage students with key concepts and research related to the learning objectives, whilst developing their skills in critically assessing different theoretical and practical approaches to this topic in light of available evidence. A key feature of these workshops will be developing students’ ability to relate theory, policy and practice together, and understand the relationship between these in relation to hate crime and related responses. These will also help develop a number of transferable skills, such as oral communication, group work, the ability to evaluate evidence and make reasoned arguments, as well as the subject-specific skills mentioned above. Workshop exercises and discussion also provide students with feedback on their understanding and progress at regular points during the academic year.
• Preparation and reading: constitutes an important mode of learning on the module. It develops many of the subject-specific and key skills indicated above (e.g. engaging with a range of related research and policy/practice examples). It will involve preparation for the workshops and subsequent further reading, including in support of developing assignment submissions (including the annotated scrapbook and commentary).
• Summative assessment: The annotated scrapbook will enable students to demonstrate their understanding of key issues relating to hate crime and connected understandings of the relationship between social scientific knowledge, social policy and practice in this field of study. The supporting commentary will provide a further opportunity to demonstrate critical depth in relation to the issues, examples and material presented within students’ scrapbooks.
• Formative Assessment: The single page from their scrapbook (and related 250 word commentary) will enable students to begin to test out their skills in relating theory, evidence, policy and practice in relation to hate crime. Feedback on this one example page and related commentary will enable students to build on their learning further in preparation for the summative assessment.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

One page from the scrapbook with a 250 word commentary illustrating how theory and/or empirical research from hate studies sheds light on the examples chosen in the scrap book.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University