Text and Context of Malediction

Hate crime research has gone through several ebbs §and flows over the last twenty years. At times, §acts of horrific brutality have brought the issue of §hate violence into the public imagination; sometimes §resulting in legislative and policing changes. §However, these changes in hate crime regulation are §not universal, even in Western democratic states. In §relation to hate violence, contemporary Australian §research has begun to address the inconsistent §application of law, public policy and policing §practice. However, the issue of hate speech has §remained largely uninterrogated. Equally, research §has tended to focus on the unique characteristics of §specific forms of hate violence, rather than assess §the conditions of exclusion shared by disparate §groups. This book remedies both of these deficiences §by providing a critical analysis of the role of hate §speech in hate violence, and offering a comparative §investigation of antisemitic and heterosexist §violence. Legal and social researchers, and public §policy makers will find this work useful in §evaluating the role of the speech regulation in §achieving the goal of eliminating hate violence.