one - The adventures of an accidental academic in ‘policy-land’: a personal reflection on bridging academia, policing and government in a hate crime context

Summary

The involvement of academia in the administration of government has been fairly common in the United States for some time. This has been progressively mirrored in recent years in England and Wales, where many policy makers in various hate crime circles both locally and nationally have, for a variety of reasons, become increasingly amenable to the notion of involving ‘outsiders’ in the policy-making process. As an academic with a strong interest in hate crime based at an English university, I have been fortunate enough (depending on your point of view of course) to be a part of this shift in the practitioner/policy-making ethos over a number of years. In this chapter I reflect on my personal experiences as an academic venturing into the world of hate crime policy making within the context of both policing and central government. In addition, I discuss the implications of the lessons I have learned for understanding and furthering the academic-practitioner/policy-maker relationship.

Stephen Lawrence, Sir William Macpherson and an ‘accidental’ academic

In order to properly discuss and explain my experiences as an academic in the world of policy making, I should probably provide some context about how I got to be in this position (there is a possibility that this might turn into something of an autobiography for a while, so I hope you’ll bear with me). My journey into hate crime scholarship starts, indirectly, with the murder of Stephen Lawrence in south-east London in 1993. I should point out, however, that I was 16 years old at the time of Stephen's murder, and my only real concerns in life were about how well I would do in my GCSE examinations, what A-levels I should choose and, most importantly of all, the double anxiety of whether or not Arsenal would win the League and FA Cup finals, and whether I’d be able be to get tickets to see both games at Wembley. Ultimately, my exams went well, I got into college, Arsenal won both finals, and I was there to see them do it (those of you reading this who have any interest in football will know the current importance to an Arsenal fan of reminiscing about the past, so I hope you’ll forgive my brief indulgence here).