Lifecycle of a hate crime: country report for Ireland

The purpose of this research was to understand and explore the Lifecycle of a Hate Crime in the Irish criminal justice process. The objectives of the research were to: -Detail the operational realities of hate crime legislation by gathering experiential accounts of the legislation ‘in action’ from legal professionals; - Document differences in both victims’ and offenders’ experiences of the criminal justice process according to the legislative and policy context; and - Identify shortfalls in the legislative responses to Article 4 of the Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia. To this end, the research partners were tasked with conducting a doctrinal analysis of relevant legislation; exploring policies pertaining to policing and prosecutorial functions in relation to hate crime; conducting a secondary analysis of statistics on the recording, prosecution and sentencing of hate crime; and conducting interviews with victims, previous offenders, judges, prosecutors, and defence practitioners. The research sought to illuminate the period between 2011 and 2016.