Gender ‘hostility’, rape, and the hate crime paradigm

This article examines whether crimes motivated by, or which demonstrate, gender ‘hostility’ should be included within the current framework of hate crime legislation in England and Wales. The article uses the example of rape to explore the parallels (both conceptual and evidential) between gender‐motivated violence and other ‘archetypal’ forms of hate crime. It is asserted that where there is clear evidence of gender hostility during the commission of an offence, a defendant should be pursued in law additionally as a hate crime offender. In particular it is argued that by focusing on the hate‐motivation of many sexual violence offenders, the criminal justice system can begin to move away from its current focus on the ‘sexual’ motivations of offenders and begin to more effectively challenge the gendered prejudices that are frequently causal to such crimes

Access to Health Care for Elderly Immigrants

This comment argues that our current approach of limiting immigrant access to federal healthcare programs for the elderly is not only unjust, but also shortsighted. The author points out that many undocumented immigrants make significant tax contributions to the Medicare and Social Security programs. By not permitting undocumented immigrants to receive Medicare benefits associated with their contributions, the incentive for immigrants to contribute to Medicare will be eliminated and further strain will be placed on the Medicaid program. The author concludes that this policy approach will increase the costs to society of providing health care to an aging immigrant population and to our elderly population as a whole

Access to Health Care for Elderly Immigrants

This comment argues that our current approach of limiting immigrant access to federal healthcare programs for the elderly is not only unjust, but also shortsighted. The author points out that many undocumented immigrants make significant tax contributions to the Medicare and Social Security programs. By not permitting undocumented immigrants to receive Medicare benefits associated with their contributions, the incentive for immigrants to contribute to Medicare will be eliminated and further strain will be placed on the Medicaid program. The author concludes that this policy approach will increase the costs to society of providing health care to an aging immigrant population and to our elderly population as a whole

Addressing violence against women as a hate crime: limitations and possibilities

In 1998, the Labour government introduced legislation broadening British sentencing powers in relation to crimes aggravated by the offender’s hostility towards the victim’s actual or perceived race, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Gender is a notable omission from this list. Through a survey of eighty-eight stakeholders working in the violence against women (VAW) sector, this paper explores both the potential benefits and possible disadvantages of adding a gender-based category concerned with VAW to British hate crime legislation. The majority of participants believed that a hate crime approach would offer significant benefits, especially in terms of the symbolic power of the law to send a message to society that VAW is unacceptable. However, most also recognised that the addition of a VAW category to current legislation would involve major practical and conceptual difficulties, not least those resulting from problematic assumptions about the nature of hate crimes versus VAW, and a general unwillingness on the part of policy-makers to address the socio-cultural inequalities that underpin VAW. Overall, the fact that the majority of participants favoured inclusion, on the basis that the possible symbolic benefits were likely to outweigh the potential practical disadvantages, is significant: it speaks to the power of hate crime legislation to challenge many forms of inequality and discrimination still endemic in British society