Oxford Law Equality and Diversity Lecture 2022-23: Humanising the Harms of Hate: The Inevitability of Indifference

The Faculty of Law is delighted to welcome​ Professor Neil Chakraborti, University of Leicester, to deliver the annual Equality and Diversity Lecture for 2022-23.

Abstract: In an age where the coalescence of multiple points of crisis has been used to legitimise and normalise hostility, this paper considers the human costs of hate crime. Within this context the need for improved support for victims of hate crime has rarely been more apparent, with numbers of incidents rising to unprecedented levels across many parts of the world. Drawing from extensive engagement with more than 2,000 victims of hate crime, this paper identifies a series of faultlines in relation to dismantling barriers to justice and prioritising meaningful engagement with diverse communities. Such faultlines are reinforced by cultures of political, practitioner and public indifference which de-humanise the physical and emotional harms of hate; which marginalise empirical evidence, activism and evaluation; which diffuse responsibility onto others; and which render the ‘all too visible’ and ‘easy to ignore’ as ‘invisible’ and ‘hard to reach’. The paper reminds us of the consequences of indifference, and identifies ways in which we can reach beyond our own echo chambers to connect with lived experiences and realities.

Speaker: Neil Chakraborti is a Professor of Criminology and Director of the Centre for Hate Studies at the University of Leicester. He has published extensively within the fields of hate crime, policing and ‘othering’, and has been commissioned by numerous funding bodies including Amnesty International, the Economic and Social Research Council (EHRC), the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Leverhulme Trust to lead research studies which have shaped policy and scholarship. Professor Chakraborti is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and Chair of the Research Advisory Group at the Howard League for Penal Reform. He has received awards for his work from a variety of sources including the Royal Television Society, Learning on Screen and the President’s Award from the University of Leicester. He is series editor of Palgrave Hate Studies, an Associate Editor for Criminology and Criminal Justice, and a member of the ESRC’s Grant Assessment Panel. He also holds a diverse range of advisory positions which include roles with the British Society of Criminology Hate Crime Network, BLM in the Stix, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Human Dignity Trust, the IARS International Institute, the International Network for Hate Studies, Oxford University Press and Protection Approaches.

Chair: Ian Loader is Professor of Criminology, Professorial Fellow of All Souls College and Director of the Centre for Criminology at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. He is also an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, a Fellow of British Academy, and the Royal Society for the Arts. Professor Loader is the author of six books, including Public Criminology? (Routledge, 2010, with Richard Sparks), and six edited volumes, including Democratic Theory and Mass Incarceration (with Albert Dzur and Richard Sparks, Oxford UP, 2016) and The SAGE Handbook of Global Policing (with Ben Bradford, Bea Jauregui and Jonny Steinberg, 2016). He has published theoretical and empirical papers on policing, private security, public sensibilities towards crime, penal policy and culture, the politics of crime control, and the public roles of criminology. Professor Loader is currently working on a three-year study entitled ‘Place, crime and insecurity in everyday life: A contemporary study of an English town’ funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. He is also writing a monograph with the working title of Ideologies in Crime Control to be published by Oxford University Press.

This event is generously supported by Blackstone Chambers and will be followed by a drinks reception.

Accessibility: The ground and lower ground floor levels of the auditorium are accessible with space for wheelchair users. A fully accessible WC is available on the lower ground floor level. The auditorium also has a hearing loop installed.