Change the UK Law - Goth Hate Crime - lets try anyway

[Ulfilas]

Please repost!!


PLEASE cut and paste the template letter below, and sign with your real name, email address, and telephone number to make the UK legally take action. It does not matter which country you live in.

PLEASE use this letter to contact a member of Parliament - If you're in the UK, You should contact your local one.. and anyone outside the UK maybe contact the MP for where the incident happened (details below)

A good way to find your local MP and send a message to them is by using

WriteToThem.com

which will let you find your MP and MEPs. It would also be a good idea to write your Member of European Parliament too.

My local MP Gisela Stuart is really good at following through any concerns I've had with her in the past.

The local MP for where the incident happened is Janet Anderson MP Rossendale & Darwen Constituency

Constituency
Janet Anderson MP
731 Bacup Road
Waterfoot
Rossendale
BB4 7EU

fax 01706 223747
phone 01706 220909

Westminster
Janet Anderson MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
email andersonj@parliament.uk
fax 020 7219 2148
phone 020 7219 5375/6629


There are also several other ways that you can contact the British Government.

Go to : www.number-10.gov.uk

this lists several ways that you can contact Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister - I think he ought to receive this too. In fact the more MPs and government ministers receive this the better.

THANK YOU!!!!!

Email, Post, Fax, Hand Deliver, or go to your local MP Surgery to give the following message:
------------------------------

Subject line: Legislation needed


Dear Parliament,

Sophie Lancaster, 20 and her boyfriend were set upon while walking through Stubbylee Park in Bacup on August 11. They were both beaten up in a vicious assault. Miss Lancaster was left in a coma with serious head and facial injuries and died. Her boyfriend Robert Maltby, 21, was also left in a coma with bleeding on the brain but has recovered. He had been briefly let out of hospital on Wednesday to visit Miss Lancaster. The pair, both from Bacup, have been described as "Goths" who usually dress in black and wear heavy face make-up. It is understood the couple had been targeted in the past because of the way they dressed and looked. Five male youths have been already been charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Police said those charges would now be the subject of a review by detectives and the Crown Prosecution Service. A 15-year-old and a 17-year-old have been remanded in custody, while two 15-year-olds and a 17-year-old were released on bail. They were all due to appear before Burnley Youth Court on September 27,2007.

I would like to see language added to your existing Hate Crime Prevention as it is written in The Public Order Act 1986 in England and Wales.

Hate crimes (also known as bias motivated crimes) occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her membership in a certain social group, usually defined by race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, or political affiliation. as it is written in Language in England and Wales--

Thank you,

Your REAL name
Your REAL email address
Your REAL phone number

[Underwater Ophelia]

Look, I don't know who wrote that letter, but I'd bet it's gonna go nowhere, because it's terribly written. If you want people to take you seriously, write well and clearly when you appeal to them.

It was phrased awkwardly, didn't make use of intelligent language, and worst of all, was completely and totally vague.

[Ulfilas]

It's a start at least.

I'm not sure who wrote it either. But It would be great if someone could offer to draft a better version if required. Thanks for the constructive criticism. Hopefully it can be made better.

[KontanKarite]

*sigh*

Here's the sad part. You can't just say "goth" is protected.

What CAN help someone is being protected by law by cultural affiliations or subcultural affiliations.

[LadyLucretia]

Originally Posted by Ulfilas

It's a start at least.

I'm not sure who wrote it either. But It would be great if someone could offer to draft a better version if required. Thanks for the constructive criticism. Hopefully it can be made better.

Well, where did you get it from? I have extensive concerns about this, and the organization behind it, but don't feel like getting into it. Suffice to say this will go nowhere.

[LadyLucretia]

Are you serious?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Order_Act_1986

That law is in regards to organizing racist organizations and riots.

You're not actually claiming that these struggles can be equated?

[delicti]

This is really getting out of hand. You're risking embarrassing us all for what? That law is not going to change, be realistic.

[IsolatedReptile]

Besides, a hate crime is against someone who can't really help what they are. If you are afraid stop dressing that way.

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by IsolatedReptile

Besides, a hate crime is against someone who can't really help what they are. If you are afraid stop dressing that way.

Yes. Damn fashion. Let's all get our governments to hand out the new uniforms that every single person in the world will wear. All males will have hair no longer than 4 inches on top and 1/4 an inch on the sides. All females will have hair that will not go below the bottom of their uniform collars.

Cause... you know. People can't seem to help themselves. They see a person in all black and they feel like they have to attack that person in all black. Don't worry about it though, it's totally justified behaviour. That damn faggy goth person shouldn't dress that way. They had it coming. They ASKED to be beaten to death because of their black make up and black clothes.

[badteccy]

Dude, that wasn't what he was saying at all.

[Underwater Ophelia]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

Yes. Damn fashion. Let's all get our governments to hand out the new uniforms that every single person in the world will wear. All males will have hair no longer than 4 inches on top and 1/4 an inch on the sides. All females will have hair that will not go below the bottom of their uniform collars.

Cause... you know. People can't seem to help themselves. They see a person in all black and they feel like they have to attack that person in all black. Don't worry about it though, it's totally justified behaviour. That damn faggy goth person shouldn't dress that way. They had it coming. They ASKED to be beaten to death because of their black make up and black clothes.

Kontan, what are you even talking about?

[IsolatedReptile]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

Yes. Damn fashion. Let's all get our governments to hand out the new uniforms that every single person in the world will wear. All males will have hair no longer than 4 inches on top and 1/4 an inch on the sides. All females will have hair that will not go below the bottom of their uniform collars.

Cause... you know. People can't seem to help themselves. They see a person in all black and they feel like they have to attack that person in all black. Don't worry about it though, it's totally justified behaviour. That damn faggy goth person shouldn't dress that way. They had it coming. They ASKED to be beaten to death because of their black make up and black clothes.

Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe I should have typed a bit more clear. If we were in person I'd speak slower.

What I said was, it's a fashion thing. Fashion is a choice. If you feel threatened, don't dress that way. It's not a hate crime because you wear black. It's just a crime. It's a hate crime if you are black. You can't help that.

If you don't want people to stare at your tits, don't show them. You don't want someone thinking your gay, stay in men's clothes. You don't want someone thinking you're a freak, stay out of the all black.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by IsolatedReptile

Besides, a hate crime is against someone who can't really help what they are. If you are afraid stop dressing that way.

I don't quite agree with that. Attacking someone because of their religion is still a hate crime, but no one's born a member of a certain religion. Even if one argues that they are, there's still the fact that they can make the choice to convert to another religion, or to not be a member of a religion at all.

One's a choice of style, the other's a choice of beliefs. But they're still both choices.

[LadyLucretia]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

I don't quite agree with that. Attacking someone because of their religion is still a hate crime, but no one's born a member of a certain religion. Even if one argues that they are, there's still the fact that they can make the choice to convert to another religion, or to not be a member of a religion at all.

One's a choice of style, the other's a choice of beliefs. But they're still both choices.

I don't think a choice of style is going to be seen as on the same level as religious beliefs in the court system, whether or not they're both choices.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by LadyLucretia

I don't think a choice of style is going to be seen as on the same level as religious beliefs in the court system, whether or not they're both choices.

I realize that. I was just refuting IR's statement that "a hate crime is against someone who can't really help what they are."

[Drake Dun]

Good point. If being a goth is a choice, then being a Christian or a Democrat or whatever is also a choice. So clearly hate crimes have to cover things involving choice, too.

I think we should just extend hate crimes to cover all types of crime. So then it would be "hate murder", "hate aggravated assault", "hate grand larceny", "hate intentional misrepresentation with intent to defraud in connection with interstate commerce" and so forth. So then, see, they would all have "hate" in front of them, so it would be redundant, and we could drop it, and set all the sentences back to where they were to begin with.

Then we could erase all record of the entire process, and quietly pretend that we never went through this ludicrous phase of thinking that beating someone up because you don't like their clothes is somehow worse than beating them up for their wallet.

Drake

[Ulfilas]

WE just want to get recognition that people become victims of this sort of crime for belonging to a certain subculture too. It's a simple change.

Hate crime Information from the UK Home Office.

Hatred is a strong term that goes beyond simply causing offence or hostility. Hate crime is any criminal offence committed against a person or property that is motivated by an offender's hatred of someone because of their:

* race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality or national origins
* religion
* gender or gender identity
* sexual orientation
* disability

Hate crime can take many forms including:

* physical attacks – such as physical assault, damage to property, offensive graffiti, neighbour disputes and arson
* threat of attack – including offensive letters, abusive or obscene telephone calls, groups hanging around to intimidate and unfounded, malicious complaints
* verbal abuse or insults - offensive leaflets and posters, abusive gestures, dumping of rubbish outside homes or through letterboxes, and bullying at school or in the workplace

Our definition of a hate crime:

*
Any incident, which constitutes a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by prejudice or hate.

Facts & figures

Nationally, the police recorded 50,000 racially or religiously motivated hate crimes last year. The British Crime Survey, which is based on interviews with a wide sample of people and picks up crimes that are not reported to police, indicated that there were 260,000 such offences last year.

The Metropolitan Police alone reported 11,799 incidents of racist and religious hate crime and 1,359 incidents of homophobic hate crime in the 12 months to January 2006.

However, the police estimate that most racist and religious hate crime, and as much as 90% of homophobic crime, goes unreported (source: Hate Crime: Delivering a Quality Service) because victims are too frightened or embarrassed to let someone know.

The typical hate offender is a young white male (most homophobic offenders are aged 16-20, and most race hate offenders under 30) who lives locally to the victim. The majority of hate crimes happen near to the victim's home while they are going about their daily business, and an offence is most likely to be committed between 3pm and midnight.

What we’re doing about hate crime

We are working towards:

* increasing confidence in the Criminal Justice System and other agencies in responding effectively to hate crime
* increasing the proportion of victims or witnesses of hate crime who report its occurrence
* improving the proportion of hate crimes that are brought to justice
* improving the local response to hate crime particularly where there are high levels of hate crime or a high proportion per capita
* improving the evidence base on the extent and nature of hate crimes

We are working with other government departments, the police, and representative community groups to review our policy on hate crime, and will be launching a range of inititatives and measures over the next two years.
The Law

* The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 created a range of new racially and religiously aggravated offences
* The Criminal Justice Act 2003 introduced tougher sentences for offences motivated by hatred of the victim’s sexual orientation (this must now be taken into account by the sentencing court as an aggravating factor, in addition to race or religious hate motivation). Read the Sentencing Guidelines Council guidance on hate as an aggravating factor (new window) for more information

A new Racial and Religious Hatred Act

Parliament approved a bill on 31 January 2006 that made it a criminal offence to use threatening words or behaviour with the intention of stirring up hatred against any group of people defined by their religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs.

The bill gained Royal Assent on 16 February. Any prosecutions under the Act, when commenced, will require the consent of the Attorney General.

[Pale Empress]

It's a no win situation.

Unfortunately it doesn't matter how much we argue whether it should be a hate crime or not as it will not stop these things happening, having 'hate' on a crime won't change anything.

What do we call it when a pupil/employee etc is bullied, verbally/physically attacked because of wearing glasses, or for having ginger hair?

I'm not trying to make light of these situations but you have to be realistic, there are 'twats' out there that commit these crimes regardless of who/what the person is, usually they are bought up with very little discipline/or too much, violence in the home, violence on tv, drug/alcohol problems within the home, the list goes on and on.

'Thugs' know that they will generally get a slap on the wrist whenever a crime is committed and minors know this also, children aren't as innocent as society makes out!!

I understand that your heart is in the right place with wanting to get 'hate' crimes recognised but it would be more constructive to try and get sentences increased, mental/drug/alcohol/social problems looked at as this is where these crimes usually start. We need more information distributed within schools etc.

Education and information is the key and remember there are 'goths' out there that wear what they wear to shock and some do cause trouble themselves, it's a two way street.

Love and Blessings.

Stephanie x

[CptSternn]

At the end of the day, goth is a choice, not something like race or religion which can be protected.

Every person beaten is a hate crime. If the kids were wearing glasses and a pocket protector, would we include geeks as a hate crime? If they were wearing tie-dyes would we add in hippies? If they were wearing ren-faire outfits, would we protect people in medieval garb as a hate crime?

What if they wore chicken suits and had gotten beaten up? We going to make Disneyland a protected sanctuary for people in cartoon suits?

Every crime is a hate crime. People get beaten for many reasons. Beating someone because of something they cannot change deserves to be a crime enforced but adding every little fashion change to hate crime laws doesn't help us.

It lessens the effect of real hate crime legislation. If everyone goes asking to be included in 'hate crime' laws, in the end they will just raise the penalties for all beatings because everyone wants to be listed as their own group.

In this case, the people beaten could have been wearing anything - when a gang of yobs is out drinking and taking drugs in the wee hours of the morning, they are pretty much going to beat anyone they come across they don't know. Even if I agreed that goths should be protected under hate crime laws, this case is not the one that should be used to set precedent. It was a crime of opportunity - the yobs didn't track down and beat goths just because they hate goths. They didn't stalk them, wait for opportunity, then attack. It was merely a crime of opportunity.

I think even trying to get this put into legislation is a bad idea. It makes goths look petty, and ignorant. It also makes real hate crimes look less important, considering we appear to want protection like minorities or foreign nationals, and we are normal people, average citizens, mostly from affluent areas, who merely choose to wear an outfit.

If fashion and style become the basis for hate crime legislation, we are all screwed.

[Pale Empress]

Absolutely!

All abuse/beating etc are hate crimes whether intended or not.

If letters are going to be written to MPs etc, surely it would be about keeping these 'thugs' inside and not letting them have the opportunity to do this again. That is where the law needs to change as at present they know that they will more or less get away with what they have done.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

At the end of the day, goth is a choice, not something like race or religion which can be protected.

*bangs head against table*

[Ulfilas]

Well I've sent letters to my MP and so have several others. Hopefully it will help to highlight the case and give it more publicity. It seemed to disappear into the depths of the newspapers. There is just such a feeling that Something has to be done - and it seemed to obvious place to start. So we tried it. It might not have the outcome we would like. But at least we're making our voices heard. I'm sure there are other things that could be campaigned for too such as trying to change the length and type of sentences given to the people that commit such crimes.

"If fashion and style become the basis for hate crime legislation, we are all screwed."

Well that's only really true if we are guilty of hate crime ourselves.

[badteccy]

Cltohing choice is not on the same level as you're political party, religious views, etc.
For christ sakes it's just clothing...it's not important.

[Pale Empress]

Originally Posted by Ulfilas

"If fashion and style become the basis for hate crime legislation, we are all screwed."

Well that's only really true if we are guilty of hate crime ourselves.

Since this sorry incident I have read so many times and by various different people, comments such as;

"fxxxxxg chavs they should be stopped" - "we should stand up and stop these chavs" blah blah blah


Pot and kettle spring to mind, not all 'chavs' are out to get goths!

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by badteccy

Cltohing choice is not on the same level as you're political party, religious views, etc.
For christ sakes it's just clothing...it's not important.

I could say the same about one's political party or religious views. Or, for that matter, all political parties and all religious views.