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In the context of hate crime, is racist motivation treated as an aggravating circumstance?

Code:
RED29
Key Area:
Anti-racist Crime Legislation & Implementation
Strand(s):
Racism
28/02/2012 - 17:15
Short Answer

Minister of Justice Alan Shatter: “where criminal offences such as assault, criminal damage, or public order offences, are committed with a racist motive they are prosecuted as generic offences through the wider criminal law. The trial judge can take aggravating factors, including racial motivation, into account at sentencing... in all the circumstances, I have no plans, at present, for new or amended legislation to deal with incitement to hatred or racially motivated crime.

Qualitative Info

Under the equality legislation discrimination based on any one of 9 distinct grounds is unlawful. These grounds are:

  • Gender
  • Civil status
  • Family status
  • Sexual orientation
  • Religion
  • Age (does not apply to a person under 16)
  • Disability
  • Race

                                 membership of the Traveller community

Groups affected/interested Migrants, Refugees, Roma & Travelers, Muslims, Ethnic minorities, Religious minorities, Linguistic minorities, Majority, Asylum seekers, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, Persons with disability, Africans/black people, National minorities
Type (R/D) Extremism - organised Racist Violence, Anti-migrant/xenophobia, Anti-semitism, Islamophobia, Afrophobia, Arabophobia, Anti-roma/zinghanophobia, Religious intolerance, Inter-ethnic, Intra-ethnic, Nationalism, Homophobia, On grounds of disability, On grounds of other belief, Anti-roma/ romaphobia, Xenophobia
Key socio-economic / Institutional Areas Policing - law enforcement, Employment - labour market, Housing, Health and social protection, Education, Political discourse -parties - orgs, Political participation, Anti-discrimination, Anti-racism, Integration - social cohesion, Daily life, Religion
External Url http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2011/12/06/00220.asp
Situation(s)
Library