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The purpose of this chapter is to discuss disability hate crimes in the context of feminist theories of intersectionality.

A mixed-method approach is adopted, combing feminist auto-ethnography with case reviews of a number of disability hate crimes.

Disability hate crimes must be understood in the wider context of social inequality and the intersection of identities which make some people more vulnerable to criminal victimization than others.

Feminists can apply many of the lessons from third wave feminist debates about intersectionality to the topic of disability hate crimes, so that the multiplicity of inequalities which influence victimization are appropriately recognized. Policy changes are necessary to respond more appropriately to the intersectional forms of power underlying disability hate crimes.

There has not been a feminist exploration of disability hate crimes ever written before, so the chapter breaks new ground in exploring these issues.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which police services are set up to deal with hate crime against people with learning disabilities; looking at infrastructure, policies, procedures and levels of awareness and understanding.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with representatives from 14 police services in England. Key documents submitted by the police services were reviewed, and a focus group with eight people with learning disabilities was conducted.

Many police services are committed to tackling hate crime against people with learning disabilities. A wide variety of individuals have responsibility for dealing with hate crime and accountability structures are often unclear. Many services do not have hate crime policies that deal specifically with people with learning disabilities, or even disabled people in general. More training is required to ensure relevant staff are equipped to deal with the issues. Hate crime statistics are regarded as unreliable due to significant under‐reporting, although a few services have implemented innovative interventions to encourage reporting through awareness‐raising and multi‐agency working.

The Coalition Government has called for greater efforts at combating disability hate crime. It is widely acknowledged that the police are still failing disabled victims and witnesses. This paper identifies specific areas for improvement as well as innovative and effective practice that should be shared more widely.

This paper aims to consider the relationship between disability hate crime and safeguarding adults. It critically considers whether safeguarding responses to disability hate crime have changed following the implementation of the Care Act 2014. Historically, protectionist responses to disabled people may have masked the scale of hate crime and prevented them from seeking legal recourse through the criminal justice system (CJS). This paper investigates whether agencies are working together effectively to tackle hate crime.

The research presented draws on semi-structured interviews with key informants who work with disabled people and organisations as part of a wider study on disability hate crime.

Prior to the Care Act, safeguarding practice often failed to prioritise criminal justice interventions when responding to reports of disability hate crimes. Improving engagement within multi-agency safeguarding hubs and boards has the potential to increase hate crime awareness and reporting.

This research was limited in scope to 15 participants who worked in England within safeguarding teams or with victims of hate crime.

Raising the profile of disability hate crime within safeguarding teams could lead to achieving more effective outcomes for adults at risk: improving confidence in reporting, identifying perpetrators of hate crimes, enabling the CJS to intervene and reducing the risk of further targeted abuse on the victim or wider community.

This paper is original in its contribution in this field as there is a dearth of research on the relationship between safeguarding and disability hate crime.

Disabled women are reported to be between twice and five times more likely to experience sexual violence than non-disabled women or disabled men; when these are hate crimes they compound harms for both victims and communities.

This user-led research explores how disabled and Deaf victims and Survivors most effectively resist the harm and injustice they experience after experiencing disablist hate crime involving rape.

Feminist standpoint methods are employed with reciprocity as central. This small-scale peer research was undertaken with University ethics and supervision over a five year period. Subjects (n=522) consisted of disabled and Deaf victims and Survivors in North of England.

The intersectional nature of violence against disabled women unsettles constructed macro binaries of public/private space violence and the location of disabled women as inherently vulnerable. Findings demonstrate how seizing collective identity can usefully resist re-victimization, tackle the harms after disablist hate crime involving rape and resist the homogenization of both women and disabled people.

The chapter outlines inequalities in disabled people’s human rights and recommends service and policy improvements, as well as informing methods for conducting ethical research.

This is perhaps the first user-led, social model based feminist standpoint research to explore the collective resistance to harm after experiencing disablist hate crime involving rape. It crossed impairment boundaries and included community living, segregated institutions and women who rely on perpetrators for personal assistance. It offers new evidence of how disabled and Deaf victims and Survivors can collectively unsettle the harms of disablist hate crime and rape and achieve justice and safety on a micro level.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an overview of hate crime relating to people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

This is a discussion outlining some of the key evidence relating to ASD and hate crime.

For too long the issue of hate crime and autism has been neglected in spite of significant numbers of people with ASDs experiencing hate crime and/or harassment on a regular basis.

Although people with ASD are thought to be subject to high rates of hate crimes the literature is sparse when compared to other strands of hate crime such as race or religion.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of mate crime and attempts to assess its practical as well as its theoretical implications.

It begins with an account of the short history of the concept and then positions mate crime within academic theorising around general hate crime and disability.

Particular reference is made to the significance of the issue of vulnerability and how its interpretation might affect understanding of this phenomenon.

This is followed by some observations on how agencies of social policy and the legislature are responding to the issue of mate crime.

Particular reference is paid to the impact of safeguarding adults procedures.

It concludes that, although “mates” can (and do) “hate”, further research is required on the subject in order to gain better knowledge of the issue from both a theoretical and a practice position.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an introduction to the recently recognised phenomenon of “mate crime” as it affects people with learning disabilities. It looks at how concerns arose, considers what may make people with learning disabilities particularly susceptible, and proposes a provisional definition of “mate crime”.

The paper draws on the author's own project work, and reviews the extant research literature on “disablist” hate crime to examine the extent to which so-called “mate crime” has been both explicitly and implicitly identified and analysed in the literature.

The literature review indicates that “mate crime” has not been explicitly identified in any scholarly research to date, either under that or any other name. Crimes that we might label as “mate crimes” have, however, appeared in more general literature concerning the experiences of people with disabilities in general, and as victims of crime.

Despite a lack of firm data there is sufficient in the literature, combined with increasing anecdotal evidence and case studies, to suggest that people with learning disabilities are particularly susceptible to “mate crime”, and are being targeted by perpetrators. Increasing independence and reduced service provision are likely to increase the risks. The author argues that mate crime differs significantly from other manifestations of hate crime and abuse, and needs to be conceptualised, analysed and handled differently.

Whilst the issue of “mate crime” is gaining increasing professional and media attention it lacks any academic base and a definition. This paper attempts to establish an agreed definition and conceptualisation of “mate crime”.

This article argues that while the hate crime model has accelerated criminal justice agencies' understanding of the importance of the victim‐centred approach to investigating and prosecuting hate crime, at the same time it risks oversimplifying the victim experience. Recent reports published by the Metropolitan Police Service and the Equality and Human Rights Commission suggest that the victim experience of hate crime is very complex, with a number of impacts and risks at the intersections of identity. The concept of intersectionality, as explained by Horvath and Kelly (2008), is applied to identify some improvements that can be made in criminal justice policy to better recognise and address ‘what is really going on’ for victims of hate crime.

The purpose of this paper is to summarise key findings and recommendations from the “Living in Fear” research project focusing on the experiences of people with learning disabilities and autism related to disability hate crime and the experience of the police in dealing with such incidents.

Methods included: first, a postal survey with 255 people with learning disabilities or autism (or their carers for people with more severe disabilities), of whom 24 also took part in semi-structured interviews; and second, an electronic survey of the knowledge and experience of 459 police officers or support staff.

Just under half of participants had experienced some form of victimisation. The Police reported problems with the definition of disability hate crime and challenges to responding effectively.

A case study from the research highlights some of the key findings and is linked to implications for people with learning disabilities and autism, carers, police and other agencies.

Previous research has highlighted that victimisation is an issue for this group of people, but has never explored the prevalence and nature of such experiences in a representative sample. Neither has previous research brought together the perspectives of so many different agencies to offer recommendations that go across many sectors. The paper will be of interest to people with disabilities and their carers, professionals in health, social care and the Criminal Justice system.

The purpose of this paper is to explore stressors and facilitators experienced by police officers when engaging with individuals with learning disabilities, within the context of policing disablist hate crime.

This paper is based on qualitative data obtained from research undertaken within a medium-sized police force in the south of England, and which focuses on the lived realities of service providers and service users. Using a triangulatory research approach, this research included a total of 230 h of observations of day-to-day policing, 10 semi-structured interviews with police officers and 4 focus groups with individuals with learning disabilities.

Stressors, previously identified by sociologist Michael Lipsky – the unpredictability of situations, workload pressures and need for rapid decision making – are discussed within the research, alongside additional stressors regarding the previous experience (internal and external to policing) held by police officers. For some officers, these have the opposite impact and serve as facilitators of positive engagements with individuals with learning disabilities. The discussion is situated within the social model of disability, with an emphasis placed on the impact stressors have on police processes. Finally, the paper suggests practical options for enhancing confidence within the interactions between these two groups, through police training.

The current paper explores an under-researched area of policing and disablist hate crime and utilises a combined approach of the social model of disability and Lipsky's (1980) street-level bureaucrats.