Gail Mason

Design Sensitivity in Criminal Justice Experiments

Interest in randomized experiments with criminal justice subjects has grown, in recognition that experiments are much better suited for identifying and isolating program effects than are quasi-experimental or nonexperimental research designs. Relatively little attention, however, has been paid to methodological issues. Using the statistical concept of power-the likelihood that a test will lead to the rejection of a hypothesis of no effect, a survey examines the design sensitivity of experiments on sanctions. Contrary to conventional wisdom advocating large sample designs, little relationship is found in practice between sample size and statistical power. Difficulty in maintaining the integrity of treatments and the homogeneity of samples or treatments employed offsets the design advantages of larger investigations.

Engendering homophobia: Violence, sexuality and gender conformity.

The links between social constructions of sexuality and gender are theoretically and politically problematic. A contemporary social movement understanding of violence against gay men and lesbians as ‘homophobic’ suggests a solid basis for coalitionist action. But important aspects of the imposition of gender conformity are a common thread in the experience of female, male and transsexual victims and the motives of perpetrators. Detail of violent and hostile incidents is drawn from two Australian studies: Victorian research on the experiences of 75 lesbians and a New South Wales study of 74 homicides with anti-homosexual motives. Violent acts commonly reflect the hatred and stigma felt towards women and men whose sexuality falls outside of acceptable gendered boundaries. Additionally, this research signals the importance of violence and harassment for the attainment and protection of a masculine identity among perpetrators, and the significance of gender in ways that call for a new understanding of ‘homophobia’ as a socially widespread phenomenon.

Hate Crime as a Moral Category: Lessons From the Snowtown Case

Abstract Hate crime is more than a legal category. It is also a moral category that promotes tolerance and respect over prejudice. In so doing, the concept of hate crime makes a claim for social justice on behalf of those groups disadvantaged by racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and so on. This article argues that one of the means via which the concept of hate crime does this is to generate certain forms of ‘emotional thinking’ among the general public, such as compassion for victims and contempt or disgust for perpetrators. The question of whether a given criminal event will be labelled and constructed as a hate crime is thus not simply a matter of whether it meets the minimal definitional requirements. It is also dependent upon the capacity of those who claim victim status to engender forms of emotional thinking that encourage others to see them as the undeserving victims of prejudice, that is, as ‘ideal’ victims. This argument is grounded in a recent empirical study of the Snowtown murders in South Australia. Despite the emergence of a strong ‘hatred as motive’ theme in the legal arena, the murders have never been publicly labelled as hate crime. The article argues that images of deep moral failure on the part of the victims (not just the perpetrators) precluded them from engendering forms of emotional thinking that are essential if the concept of hate crime is to function as a moral category.

'I Am Tomorrow': Violence Against Indian Students in Australia and Political Denial

India has experienced significant economic growth since the 1990s. Young middle-class Indian nationals have embraced international tertiary and vocational education as a part of this trend. Many of these students have come to Australia to study. In 2009, claims that Indian students in Australia were being targeted for racial violence received worldwide media attention. This article presents the results of a qualitative study of public documents surrounding the ‘violence against Indian students’ issue over a 12-month period. It contends that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that some of the victimisation had a racial or anti-Indian element to it. Drawing upon literature on racism, it reveals a discourse of denial that runs through the responses of Australia’s political leaders to this claim. In the current global environment, however, exposure of Australia’s denial by the Indian media may operate as a form of counter-discourse from an emerging superpower whose citizens refuse to tolerate the failure of western nations to take responsibility for the injustice of racial violence.

The symbolic purpose of hate crime law: Ideal victims and emotion

This article examines the symbolic function of hate crime law. By challenging the norms that sustain and promote prejudice, hate crime law seeks to contribute to claims for social justice on behalf of victim groups. This symbolic function cannot be achieved by legal rules alone. Drawing upon theories of emotional thinking, the article argues that the moral work of hate crime laws is dependent upon the capacity of victim groups to engender compassionate thinking that helps reconfigure perceptions of them as dangerous, illegitimate or inferior Others. This analysis seeks to contribute to our understanding of the processes through which some minority communities fall short of the image of ideal victims capable of contributing to the moral claim embedded in hate crime law.

Not Our Kind of Hate Crime

Implicit in hate crime is the premise that certain types of violence can be usefully articulated through the concept of hate. This article seeks to raise some questions about hate as a heuristic device for understanding homophobic violence. It sets the scene for this discussion by providing a brief overview of the ways in which the concept of hate has been introduced into Australian legislation. In many accounts of homophobic violence hate is reduced to a question of fear, to the perpetrators fear of his own homosexual desires. Drawing upon the specific example of violence by heterosexual men towards lesbian women, the article argues for a somewhat different angle on the relationship between hate and fear. In highlighting the significance of narratives of heterosexual love to anti-lesbian violence, it asks, what kinds of fear might we see if we looked at homophobic violence through the concept of love? To do so does not require us to reject the concept of hate but, rather, to acknowledge that love and hate are intimately entwined with each other.

The Penal Politics of Hatred

Gail Mason, Director, Sydney Institute of Criminology Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, Australia delivered the 2009 J.V. Barry Memorial Lecture on the penal politics of hatred. On the 31 May this year, between 2000 and 5000 students, led by the Federation of Indian Students in Australia, rallied in the CBD in Melbourne.The anger of these international students has been sparked by concerns that they are being specifically targeted for robberies, assaults and other forms of attack. The perception has been that these incidents are not random and cannot be attributed to the kind of bad luck that comes with living in a modern metropolis. Rather, the ire of these international students has been raised by the belief that there is something more insidious behind the violence experienced by members of their community. The claim that comes across loudly and clearly from these rallies is that it is prejudice and racism that lie behind the attacks or, even more specifically, some kind of anti-Indian sentiment. These protests have also managed to convey the message that many international students, not just from India, are deeply dissatisfied with the conditions under which they study, work and live while in Australia. The extent to which these claims are an accurate representation of the problem is not a question I address in this lecture. Instead, I am interested in the kinds of responses that these claims have generated. The issues themselves have attracted extensive media attention both in Australia and India and, in terms of the latter, this coverage has been fiercely critical of the problem of racism in Australia. This, in turn, has led to comment and action at the highest level of government. Julia Gillard and John Brumby are just two Federal and State politicians who have already visited India in an attempt to reduce the fallout to Australias international education industry. We have also seen a concerted and targeted policing response, the establishment of a hot-line for victims, a Senate inquiry into the welfare of international students and a number of other governmental initiatives in the migration, education and employment sectors.

Policing hate crime: markers for negotiating common ground in policy implementation

This article considers the implementation of police hate crime policy. Victoria, a state in Australia, provides a case study of a jurisdiction where police have introduced a Prejudice Motivated Crime Strategy without an animating hate crime offence. The article identifies the organisational, relational and operational challenges and opportunities that arise in the implementation of this strategy. The literature reveals that successfully policing hate crime is impeded where the approach to defining and categorising hate crime is over- or under-inclusive. Over-inclusive approaches focus on community expectations while under-inclusive approaches are oriented towards prosecution. The absence of a legally bounded definition of hate crime in Victoria provides an opportunity to develop an approach that meets public expectations and operational needs of police, thus avoiding the pitfalls of over- or under-inclusive approaches. To realise this opportunity, the article draws upon the results of a research partnership between Victoria Police and a consortium of Australian universities. Synthesising legal standards with community interests, a set of five markers are advanced for frontline officers to negotiate, rather than assume, a common understanding of hate crime and to build police/community trust. The article makes an important contribution to the field by demonstrating that it is possible to advance the implementation of hate crime policy through strategies that are responsive to both legal standards and community expectations.

Naming the ‘R’ word in racial victimization: Violence against Indian students in Australia

In 2009, thousands of international students, led by the Federation of Indian Students in Australia, staged a public protest in the central business district of Melbourne in Australia. One focus of the demonstration was the claim that Indian students living in Australia were being deliberately targeted for racist violence and crime. In the months following the demonstrations, many deep-seated problems in the international education industry were revealed, generating multiple and ongoing reviews of the education, migration, housing, transport and criminal justice sectors. This article focuses on the ways in which police services and political leaders have responded to the claim that racism is behind the victimization of Indian students studying and living in Australia. It will argue that, with one or two exceptions, both have responded with a range of discursive strategies that, ultimately, amount to a form of denial. Significantly, this is not a denial of the problem of violence itself but, rather, a denial of the racial character of that violence. Such denial raises the question: can racist victimization, or any form of hate crime, truly be acknowledged if the prejudiced or biased nature of that victimization is not accorded public recognition and condemnation?

The Hate Threshold Emotion, Causation and Difference in the Construction of Prejudice-motivated Crime

Hate crime laws have emerged within a climate of penal expansion and identity politics. They contain ideological claims designed to reconfigure social norms and regimes of difference. This article employs the concept of the hate threshold to examine the principles and practices that turn an ordinary crime into a hate crime and the normative messages that flow from this. The hate threshold takes three major elements – emotion, causation and difference – as a framework for analysing how the legal rules are operationalised. Analysis of Australian sentencing aggravation law reveals that courts have set a relatively rigorous standard for offender sentiment and causation. However, the development of a more fluid threshold around the element of difference raises questions about the constitutive implications when law ‘misfires’. This analysis of the law in action provides a material foundation for reflecting on the capacity of hate crime law to engage in larger processes of remoralisation.