EXPERTS in disability hate crime are gathering for two seminars to help tackle the growing problem in society.
The seminars, which are taking place at De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester, aim to highlight the lack of support and guidance given to disabled people and to address the issues that will help stop attacks from happening in the future.
They come after a high profile case in Leicester of disability hate crime, in which Fiona Pilkington killed herself and her disabled daughter Francecca in 2007 after years of abuse.
The first seminar, Understanding and Responding to Disablist Hate Crime and Violence, takes place next week on Tuesday and Wednesday 4-5 May.
The second seminar, Disablist Hate Crime: Working with Evidence, takes place on 23 June.
Both events have been organised by leading figures in the area, Professor Alan Roulstone from DMU and Dr Hannah Mason-Bish from Roehampton University.
Professor Roulstone said: “Disabled people have been last on the list to be recognised in UK legislation in facing hate motivated attacks and harassment.
“The Criminal Justice System and the Crown Prosecution Service response to disablist hate crime are simply lagging behind the now weekly evidence of the abusive treatment of disabled people.
“An urgent review of current policy and guidance on disablist hate crime is required if disabled people are to be given the protection they rightly deserve.”
Next week’s seminar will examine topics such as interventions in disablist hate crime, prosecuting hate crime and the changing shape of hostility towards disabled people.
Contributors to the event include Professor Jack Levin, Co-Director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict at Northeastern University in Boston, USA.
Professor Levin is a renowned authority on hate crimes and teaches ‘Sociology of Violence and Hate’ at the university.
He said: “The mistreatment of people with disabilities is too often more of an obstacle to their success than the very physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disadvantage they possess. When we treat seriously attacks based on disability, we send a message both to the perpetrators and to the victims that we will no longer tolerate the cruel and inhumane treatment of an entire group of people.
“The seminar will bring together outstanding scholars and practitioners whose collective efforts are likely to clarify and move forward issues surrounding hate crimes against people with disabilities.
“There is wide recognition in both England and the United States of the presence of hate offences based on race, religion, and sexual orientation, but not disabilities.
“The upcoming seminar promises to increase our awareness that the brutal attacks on people with disabilities also deserve our urgent attention.”
Seminar two aims to draw upon the evidence presented at the first seminar and directly inform criminal justice, community safety and adult social care policy and practices.
Nadine Tilbury, Senior Policy Advisor at the Crown Prosecution Service, will provide a keynote speech.
Both seminars will be attended by people working in policing, probation, judiciary, community safety, adult social care, youth offending and disabled peoples’ organisations and services.
