CCJS Annual Lecture: Rehumanising the Harms of Hate

Hear from Professor Neil Chakraborti as he delivers the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies' 2025 Annual Lecture.

Abstract

Hate crime has become an increasingly familiar term as the harms associated with acts of targeted hostility continue to pose complex challenges for societies across the world. However, despite rising interest within criminology and associated disciplines, the range of harms experienced by victims remains under-explored, particularly within disadvantaged and disconnected communities where experiences of hate crime are likely to be especially acute at times of political, social and economic crises.

Within this talk, Professor Chakraborti draws from fresh empirical research which re-visits the harms of hate from the vantage point of victims who have typically been peripheral to the development of conceptual and policy frameworks on the basis of being ‘hard to reach’ – or perhaps more pertinently ‘easy to ignore’. He considers how harms can be shaped by a variety of enabling factors, including an increasingly hostile political climate, institutional ‘indifference’ and the haemorrhaging of support services, to the point where victims can feel trapped in a cycle of hopelessness borne from the inevitability of repeat victimisation within times of escalating fragility and uncertainty. In seeking to re-humanise these harms, Professor Chakraborti calls for a more hopeful vision which centres the voices of the ‘voiceless’ within theory and praxis, and which enables us to move beyond the prevailing cycle of empty rhetoric and flawed responses.

About the Speaker

Neil Chakraborti is a Professor in Criminology, Director of the Institute for Policy, and Co-Director of the Centre for Hate Studies at the University of Leicester. He has published extensively within the fields of hate crime, victimisation and ‘othering’, and has been commissioned by numerous funding bodies including Amnesty International, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Leverhulme Trust to lead research studies which have shaped policy and scholarship.

Neil is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and series editor of Palgrave Hate Studies. He has received prestigious awards for his work from a variety of sources, including the Royal Television Society, Learning on Screen, the British Society of Criminology, the President’s Award from the University of Leicester and a Hero of Leicestershire Award. He holds a diverse range of advisory positions which include roles with the Crown Prosecution Service, the Howard League for Penal Reform, the Human Dignity Trust, the International Network for Hate Studies and Oxford University Press.

He is currently Principal Investigator of ‘The Rural Racism Project: Re-storying Life in the Countryside’, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and ‘A Catalyst for Change: Transforming Responses to Harassment in Higher Education’, funded by the the Economic and Social Research Council.

How to Attend

Please register in advance via Tickettailor.