Hate crimes are any crimes that are targeted at a person because of hostility or prejudice towards that person’s:
- disability
- race or ethnicity
- religion or belief
- sexual orientation
- transgender identity
Hate crime can fall into one of three main types: physical assault, verbal abuse and incitement to hatred.
Physical assault is where an individual or a group attacks a person physically, with or without the use of a weapon, or threatens to hurt them. It could include scratching, pushing, kicking, punching, throwing things, using weapons or physically restraining that person.
Verbal abuse is when someone uses their words to assault, dominate, ridicule, manipulate, and/or degrade another person and it negatively impacts on that person.
Incitement to hatred means someone acts in a way that is threatening and intended to stir up hatred. That could be in words, pictures, videos, music, and includes information posted on websites.
Hate content can look like:
Physical assault is where an individual or a group attacks a person physically, with or without the use of a weapon, or threatens to hurt them. It could include scratching, pushing, kicking, punching, throwing things, using weapons or physically restraining that person.
Verbal abuse is when someone uses their words to assault, dominate, ridicule, manipulate, and/or degrade another person and it negatively impacts on that person.
Incitement to hatred means someone acts in a way that is threatening and intended to stir up hatred. That could be in words, pictures, videos, music, and includes information posted on websites.
Hate content can look like:
- messages calling for violence against a specific person or group
- web pages that show pictures, videos or descriptions of violence against anyone due to their differences
- chat forums where people ask other people to commit hate crimes against a specific person or group