1st Edition

Disability Hate Crime Perspectives for Change

Edited By Leah Burch, David Wilkin Copyright 2025
250 Pages
by Routledge

250 Pages
by Routledge

250 Pages
by Routledge

Bringing together perspectives from academics, practitioners, campaigners, and activists, this book explores the victimology of disability hate crime (DHC). For the first time, this book brings together recent academic thought, the stance of those working for the United Nations to further the rights of disabled people, and a helpful toolkit on how to advance the status of the disabled victim of... Read more

Contents

List of Contributors

Foreword

Introduction

David Wilkin and Leah Burch

1.         The Vagaries of Vulnerability

            David Wilkin

2.         Revealing the Benefits, Barriers, and Prevalence of Intersectionality in Disability Hate Crime Research

            Jane C. Healy

3.         Geographies of Disability Hate Crime

            Edward Hall

4.         Disability, Mate Crime, and Cuckooing (Home Takeovers)

            Stephen J. Macdonald, John Clayton and Catherine Donovan

5.         Online Harm? Uncovering Experiences of (in)Visible Appearance-Based Trolling and Hostility

            Lauren Doyle

6.         Structural Disability Hate

            Emma Astra (AKA The Disabled PhD Student)

7.         ‘Every Day Is Filled with Unexpected Violations’: Examining the Continuum of Disability Hate Crime for Disabled Women

            Hannah Mason-Bish

8.         Online Disablist Hate Speech: The Role of Social Networking Sites

            Erin Pritchard

9.         The Emotional Labour of Researching Hate Crime

            Irene Zempi

10.        Disability Hate Speech and Hate Crimes: Assessing the Role of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Tackling Disability-based Animus

            By Janet E. Lord, William I. Pons, Michael Ashley Stein, Kathy Ellem and Paul Harpur

11.        Working in Partnership: Opportunities, Values, and Impact

             Leah Burch and Joanne English (on behalf of People First Merseyside)

12.       Hate Crime Advocacy

            Ashley Stephen

13.       Campaigning against Disability Hate

            Bethany Bale

14.       Policy Futurities of Disability Hate and Hostility: Reflections from Two Jurisdictions

            Claire Edwards

15.       Disability Hate Crime: Historic Achievements and Future Directions

            Stephen Brookes MBE

Conclusion

Leah Burch and David Wilkin

Index

Biography

Leah Burch is a senior lecturer in the School of Social Science at Liverpool Hope University. Leah is a member of the British Society of Criminology Hate Crime Network, where she co-leads postgraduate and early career researcher events. Leah has also published in numerous learning journals on the topic of disability hate crimes and affect theory.

David Wilkin is a self-funded campaigner, activist, and supporter of victims of disability hate crime. David, as an academic, is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Leicester, an Associate Lecturer at the Open University, and a member of the British Society of Criminology Hate Crime Network, where he co-leads postgraduate and early career researcher events. In 2022, David also co-directed the world’s first international conference on disability hate.

'Rich in conceptual insight, methodological rigour and innovative ideas, this book challenges us to look beyond conventional assumptions about disability, vulnerability and hate crime. This is essential reading at an urgent moment.'

- Neil ChakrabortiProfessor in Criminology, University of Leicester 

'This is a very important book that adds fresh perspectives on a key issue: disability hate crime. By including chapters covering such an impressively wide range of topics, Burch and Wilkin, themselves leading experts in the field, have compiled an excellent volume that provides the most comprehensive coverage to date of this important yet hitherto understudied form of hate crime. This book is a must-read for hate crime academics and practitioners alike.' 

Professor Jon Garland, University of Surrey