Three Reshaping hate crime policy and practice: lessons from a grassroots campaign
Sylvia Lancaster · Policy Press eBooks · 2014
Sylvia Lancaster is Chief Executive of the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, a campaigning charitable organisation formed in the wake of the murder of her daughter, Sophie, in August 2007. Sophie was targeted solely because her attackers took violent exception to her ‘alternative’, gothic appearance. In this interview Sylvia outlines the Foundation’s key principles and aims and objectives, and reflects upon its growth thus far. She describes the innovative methods she has used to develop the Foundation’s activities and raise its profile, including working in partnership with numerous organisations from the business, criminal justice and charitable sectors, and assesses how successful they have been. She also outlines how over the next few years the Foundation will continue to work towards its twin goals of challenging all forms of prejudice and getting the criminal justice system to recognise the victimisation of alternatives as a hate crime.