Criminalising hate: the need for rationalisation and reform

Although the presence of aggravated offences along with the enhanced sentencing regime appears to provide a comprehensive response to identity-based criminality, the English and Welsh hate crime legislation is fragmented, inconsistent and lacks clear moral foundations. To address this, the criminalisation of hate should be seen by the legislature and those tasked with interpreting the law as a three-stage process while treating the various hate crime provisions as an interconnected body of laws. After making the case for the rationalisation and reform of the current law, the article proceeds by illustrating how the legislature of a liberal society can utilise the proposed three-stage process to adopt a more principled and coherent legal framework. To this end, an amended version of section 28(1)(a) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 is proposed. Although the jurisdictional focus of this article is England and Wales, the aim of this article is to identify an analytical tool which can be used by legislatures, policy makers and legal commentators around the world as a means of evaluating, developing and reforming the hate crimes laws of their jurisdiction.