New Zealand isn't the only jurisdiction that has legislated against homophobic hate crimes- so what happens in Britain and Canada? As a federal state, Canada faces difficulties with co-ordinating comprehensive activity against homophobic violence. Invisibility, underreporting, incompatible local definitions, victim-blaming, myths and selective enforcement hamper responses. Doug Janoff defines homophobic hate crimes as occuring within identifiable spaces against identifiable LGBT victims. He suggests that homophobic hate crime may be motivated by 'reaction formation,' in which an attacker seeks to deny his own repressed desires by developing displaced phobic anxieties and obsessions about their eventual targets which culminate in homophobic violence. There are other contributing factors, like teenage marginality, prior child sexual abuse, antigay public propaganda, and policing access and use of public space. Janoff details responses to homophobic hate crime, which include victim safety, incident reports,counselling needs, documented extents of violencem use of instruments like baseball bats, and the sexual orientation or gender identity of victims as central factors. Were attackers intoxicated? Where did homophobic violence occur? What about LGBT teenage assault victims, youth in custodial care, sex workers or homeless people? In Canada, comprehensive solutions and standardised reponses have proven hard to co-ordinate. As with New Zealand, homosexual panic defence is used as an 'extenuating circumstance,' but the Mounties are problems, and victim-blaming is commonplace in smaller Canadian cities, although larger cities have developed post-assault services, LGBT/police liaisons and other forums to deal with it. As yet, there hasn't been a specific, hate crime-related Charter of Rights and Freedoms case before the courts, although Janoff encourages Canadian readers to use punitive damages, private prosecutions and litigation based on legislative protections against torture, harrassment and verbal intimidation. In Britain, Derek McGhee has written a similar volume on its response to hate crimes. After the Blair administration passed the UK Crime and Disorder Act 1998, police/LGBT relations were transformed through civic engagement with our British counterparts. In these cases, they're seen as geographically constructed communities of interest, and active involvement and participation through shared urban responsibility has been one of the hallmarks of Blair administration approaches to police work against hate crime. After 1998, the Crime and Disorder Act required police, local authorities and communities to consult together. Incivility and antisocial behaviour aren't tolerated, and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) took a leadership role when it published A Guide to Identifying and Combatting Hate Crime in 2000. ACPO identified victimisation through homophobic incidents, acknowledging the trauma and gravity of impersonal group hatred, and maintenance of antigay public space as particular elements of homophobic hate crimes. To counter this, consultation should prepare groundwork for policy statements, community involvement, audit levels of homophobic violence and develop and implement violence prevention strategies to change public attitudes. Processes, attitudes and behaviours need to change so that hate crimes are taken seriously, victims aren't outed, and confidentiality is safeguarded. In Southhampton, McGhee details how governing bodies, police liaison officers, gay community health groups and others formed a multiagency group that discussed objectives, problems, strategies and methods for homophobic violence prevention. If trust and confidence are to be built, hate crimes should be reported, taken seriously and result in improved and publicised service provision, which is usually dependent on organised and articulate gay male citizens. Canada and Britain sound like they're making inroads into homophobic hate crimes as issues of public policy. Why did our debate end with the inclusion of hate crimes within the Sentencing and Parole Reform Act four years ago? Further reading: Derek McGhee: Intolerant Britain: Hate, Citizenship and Difference: Maidenhead: Open University Press: 2005. Douglas Janoff: Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada: Toronto: University of Toronto Press: 2005. (Prices Unavailable: Library copies) Craig Young - 19th October 2005