Paper short abstract:

This presentation will focus on the views of victims of anti-LGBTI hate crimes in Spain. We will discuss how knowledge, beliefs and expectations take a relevant role for searching an alternative way to solve problems beyond ordinary justice system.

Paper long abstract:

Hate crimes have been introduced (at different levels) into the majority of EU countries’ criminal codes. This has been celebrated by some sectors of LGBTI activism as a necessary step in the promotion of social justice and the fight against LGBTIphobia. However, after a few years of implementation, its effectiveness has been questioned and problematized by several researchers as well as activism: (i) the correlation between crime and complaints is unrealistic, (ii) not all violence experienced by LGBTI people can be covered by the criminal code and, (iii), the focus on the prosecution of hate crimes individualises violence, but LGBTIQphobia is a structural fact.

Based on the case of Spain, this proposal aims to present the problems of the legal and political strategy for the prosecution of violence against LGBTIQ people through hate crimes policies. All this drives us to explore other ways to combat violence against LGBTI people. In this regard, restorative justice may be one of the possible strategies to solve some forms of violence, but an integrative and intersectional strategy is needed to promote effective social change.

To this aim, I’ll use desk work, interviews with victims and professionals collected in the framework of Diversity, Come Forward and LetsGoByTalking projects, all of them funded by the EU.