Sectarian Interface Violence: ‘Hate Crime’ or ‘Anti-Social
Behaviour’?
recreational rioting or anti-social behaviour by stressing the hate-motivation in interface violence:
The reason they’re attacking the other community – I work with
mainly the loyalist community – when they throw stones in at the
Short Strand, they’re attacking them because they hate Catholics;
they’re not attacking them for any other reason than that you know!
Labelling the problem as recreational, then, side-lines the antagonistic
context of division which arguably perpetuates interface violence, in
both Barney and John’s views. Indeed, the use of the term ‘recreational
rioting’ to describe interface violence is vehemently rejected by John: “I
detest the term recreational rioting…I think the term recreational rioting
feeds into the notion that sectarian interface violence is not really a hate
crime.”
The Harm and Impact of Interface Violence as Hate Crime
This section offers quite a converse view to the notion that interface violence is merely recreational rioting. Indeed, by looking particularly at
the harm hate crime has caused in the Short Strand area of east Belfast, this is in contradistinction to Crawford’s aforementioned assertions
that interface violence is an anti-social activity not motivated by enmity.
Thomas (PSNI) suggests that:
…even if it [interface violence] is recreational rioting, it can still
quickly turn into something more serious if windows are smashed
or if somebody gets hurt, and if something goes on for two or three
nights…it could easily explode into something bigger.
Thus Thomas acknowledges the harms which ensue from interface violence and the consequences of it escalating into a wider conflict. Thomas’ views appear to contradict the view that recreational rioting is devoid
of any context or hostile motives. If interface violence has the potential
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