For some people, the announcement that Greater Manchester Police is to start recording violent assaults on goths, heavy metal fans and members of other easily-identifiable subcultures as “hate crimes” is evidence that the concept of hate crime has Gone Too Far.
Ken Macdonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, said on Radio 4’s Today this morning that the legally recognised categories of race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity represented “lines in the sand”, because these were “crimes that threaten social cohesion as a whole and therefore national life.” He was worried that extending the notion to members of other groups represented a “watering down” of the concept.
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