Australia gay club shooting

As a result, the Colorado Springs suspect is facing five counts of bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, in addition to murder charges. But in Australia, the victims and their families would have little such recourse. Law enforcement investigations into these matters in Australia are often inadequate. Most people would view the Colorado Springs attack as a senseless crime.

As a survivor said :. We were just enjoying ourselves. We were in our space, our community, our home, enjoying ourselves like everybody else does. However, as often happens in shooting and hate crime incidents, the targets are selected because of what they represent in the minds of the offenders. Australia understanding the motives that drive all forms of human behaviour represents a particularly difficult philosophical and practical task.

Read more: The Orlando shooting: exploring the link between hate crimes and terrorism. Our new researchpublished by the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies in October, aims to help Australian government and non-government organisations identify the motive behind hate crimes.

The adoption of these bias indicators can help agencies collect better data on prejudice-motivated acts. This can then constitute evidence that could be used by prosecutors and others in the criminal justice system, improving support for victims and increasing awareness of what hate crimes are, and how and why they should be reported.

Read more: Red flag laws and the Colorado LGBTQ club shooting — questions over whether state's protection order could have prevented tragedy. Australia urgently needs to develop a new culture on how to address hate crime with an evidence-based, holistic and whole-of-society approach.

This is because in Australian state and federal legislations, activities to combat bias-motivated acts are piecemeal at best — tending to protect some groups but not others. The few laws protecting Australians from different forms of hatred — mostly threats and incitement to violence — differ substantially across states.

In this regard, Australia is lagging behind most countries in Europe and North America. Australia needs to address different forms of hate holistically, including racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, gay, misogyny, and ableism among others. We need a national hate crime strategy that promotes collaboration club civil society organisations, government agencies, researchers and the private sector.

Therefore civil society organisations must play a key role in tackling hate.

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This includes improving law enforcement training and education around hate crimes in Australia, which for example we provide via the Tackling Hate project. The adoption of bias indicator manuals like ours would also assist their training programs. Edition: Europe. Matteo VerganiDeakin University.

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