Oh Lordy - "Disability Hate Crime". I suppose the idea is that although the current criminal justice system is totally unable to enforce existing laws on anti-social behaviour - witness the tragic fates of Christine Lakinski and the Pilkington family - they hope to add the disabled to the list of "protected species" aka designated victim groups.
The Guardian :
Although much of the abuse centred on the taunts about the children's disabilities, police failed to recognise it as a hate crime rather than simple antisocial behaviour, which would have made it a far higher priority.
The inquest heard that at the time of Pilkington's death, Leicestershire police had not implemented the Home Office guidance on hate crimes issued two years earlier.
Hinckley and Bosworth council's community officers visited Pilkington but never learned until after she was dead that anyone in the family was disabled.
And if poor Francecca Pilkington hadn't had a disability ? If she'd been harassed 'because she was there' ? Then she could go hang as far as the Guardian, the local authority and the police were concerned.
(via Dalrymple : "the seriousness of an offense committed in Britain now depends upon who the victim is. If a person is not of an identifiably protected group, he or she is not entitled to police intervention against abusive stone- and bottle-throwing youths. He is not entitled to protection at all. The Guardian’s article appears to accept that such behavior, so long as it targets a member of an unprotected group, is merely undesirable—“anti-social” rather than obviously criminal")
UPDATE - Aaarghh !
"Pilkington case may be a Lawrence moment for disability hate crime"
9 comments:
There was a case a few months ago of a harmless loner getting kicked to death by a gang of thugs. Sorry, can't recall the details, medium-term memory not what it was. But I do remember thinking: like the killers he was white, male, able-bodied and as likely as not heterosexual. They didn't hate him, he was just an easy target. And yes, in today's Britain that makes the crime LESS serious.
It's notable, isn't it, that the people who gave us hate crime are almost without exception the same people who think the prison population is too high. So when they call for stiffer sentences for hate criminals what they really mean is more leniency for all the rest - the ones whose victims (harmless loners, for instance) don't have state-funded lobby groups speaking for them.
PS When still a Labour Party member in the mid-Nineties I was a lone voice against special treatment for racially-motivated crimes. But I must admit I didn't guess what an enormous wedge I was seeing the thin edge of.
My favourite concealed weapon is battery acid.
Dalrymple once again scores a hole in one with his crisp deconstruction of Grauniad verbiage.
"UPDATE - Aaarghh!"
Can't say this wasn't predicted...
And as for treating 'hate crimes' more seriously, well, it didn't seem to do these chaps much actual good.
Note the PR speak emanating from the DCI: "A huge amount of work and resources went into dealing effectively with the situation he faced and I feel we offered a very high level of support to help deal with his situation."
How, exactly, did they 'deal with' the situation? The victims fled the area!
Whoops! First link again.
So what happens if "some people" decide to harass Guardian or BBC journalists?
Would the Old Bill investigate?
I would hope they would, but wouldn't necessarily bet that way.
It seems that we are in a process of "crime deflation" where serious crimes are downgraded.
For example, I have always understood anti-social behaviour to mean things like picking your nose in public, or wearing white socks with black shoes.
Now it seems death threats, vandalism, intimidation and so on are classified as "anti-social behaviour", whereas they are really very serious offences.
Anyway, the fact is that societies are fundamentally self-policing. The state cannot hope to contain broken Britain - -the result of forty years of moral collapse - with more coppers.
societies are fundamentally self-policing. The state cannot hope to contain broken Britain - -the result of forty years of moral collapse - with more coppers.
They understnd that which is why resorces are deployed in a more nuanced way.
Any sign of white people self-policing is decried as racism and disorder, while other communities are tacitly encouraged to take the law into their own hands "defending themselves against racism".
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