Twin track response needed to hate crime

Some of the graffiti at Inverary Community Centre

I was at Inverary Community Centre this week being interviewed by Good Morning Ulster about the graffiti that had appeared on its walls at the weekend. I know the Centre well and that part of East Belfast. Many fine people live there and much good work is co-ordinated by the Council at the Centre. There was strong and welcome condemnation from all local Councillors and the nearby East Belfast Football Club. 

It seems that a week can’t go past without a new race hate crime incident, graffiti and worse appearing somewhere with some stark messages.

The graffiti at Inverary Community Centre was bad enough but in this case a pigs head was also left at the front door.

Of course, this is ignorant racist behaviour that does not speak to the vast majority of people. It is an attack on the aspiration most of us have for a positive, outward looking, and confident intercultural future. In that future our children will enjoy living in a very different place to the myopic, untrusting, hate-consumed society that many of us grew up in.

Many people ask what can be done about this racist expression. Some don’t believe anything can be done.

Well things can be done and a lot already is. But those brave people who campaign and work for a positive intercultural future need more help.

The first area where they can be helped better is for an adequate criminal justice response to such crime. The racists who paint this graffiti should feel there is a real chance they will be caught, and then fear the sentence that follows.

Unfortunately clearance rates for racist crime is significantly lower than the average and the newspapers rarely report that people have been arrested, charged or convicted for such hate filled actions.

This society needs to hear about people being charged and sentenced much more frequently. It might make some people think long and hard in the future about expressing their prejudice with graffiti on the side of walls.

We also need to invest considerably more in education, understanding and relationship-building between people of different ethnicity, faith and race. This work is often the poor cousin to other important priorities like economic development and subsidising landmark buildings.

Yet a cohesive community is a critical asset to any economy, tourist trade or feel good factor.

The investment in work to develop cohesion and the investment in a criminal justice response to hate crime go hand in hand. Both are needed, and they will benefit each other.

We just need a government in place – or a government that listens.