Vulnerability and the art of complaint making

Considerable research, in recent times, has been devoted to some of the experiences of increased vulnerability in victimisation, especially those victims of sexual assault and domestic violence (see for example, Heenan and Murray, 2006; Lievore 2003; Taylor and Gassner, 2010). Other vulnerable victims remain under-represented in the research, and few resources have been allocated to investigate their specific experiences. In particular, the victimisation experiences of elder abuse and hate crime continue to be marginal to both research and policy development in policing. In this chapter, the experiences of gay men and lesbians are deployed to illustrate some of the extreme victimisation processes faced by hate crime victims. Importantly, these are not necessarily unique to this vulnerable population; apart from similarities with other victims of hate crime (especially, the elderly and disabled), the issues raised in this chapter can, at times, present themselves in crimes without a “hate” motivation, and thus provide a resource for policing other vulnerable groups.