The criminalization of hate crimes against the LGBT community in Spain

Abstract

[EN] Hate crimes are a growing issue in our society that, each day, affect different minorities, and legal systems around the world have looked for different ways to punish them. This paper examines the effectiveness of the contemporary criminalization of hate crimes in Spain, particularly those committed against the LGBT community, as one of the communities most affected by these types of crimes. For that purpose, this thesis will review and look at the aggravating factor of Article 22.4 of the Spanish Criminal Code. More precisely, it will evaluate the effectiveness of the current basis of the aggravating factor and the main issues that it brings, through an analysis of the doctrine and different judgments where the aggravating factor was or was not applied.