From Hate Crime to Disability Hate Crime

This chapter traces the journey from hate crime to Disability Hate Crime through an analysis of the relevant literature including policy related documents which construct and reference Disability Hate Crime. It considers the origins and evolving conceptions of both hate crime and Disability Hate Crime, the construction of disability in public policy and the construction of disability within hate crime policy. It is only recently that disability hostility has begun to be recognized as Disability Hate Crime, and it is a contested, contentious and ambiguous concept. Nonetheless, it is now recognized as a ‘social fact’ with an active policy domain and set of policies and practices. A review of the key academic literature on Disability Hate Crime and its relationship to hate crime literature in general is set out, as well as a review of the significant literature produced by the independent statutory sector, the community sector and by individual authors. Here is set out the critical consideration of the journey from hate crime to Disability Hate Crime that follows and that is concerned with how Disability Hate Crime policy and practice emerged and developed, and equally on seeking to explain why it emerged as and when it did in hate crime.