Abstract
This chapter reflects upon the contemporary state of the relationship between policy makers, practitioners and academics, and suggests that much still needs to be done before these domains, with their often very different priorities and perspectives, can work consistently well together. While a number of chapters in this volume have outlined ways in which the theoretically-driven world of academia has interacted successfully with its ‘hard-bitten’ practitioner equivalent, too often the domains have viewed each other with a degree of mutual scepticism, with neither holding the work of the other in particularly high regard. The chapter warns that unless the different domains can learn to eradicate this ‘clash of understandings’ then there is a danger that much of the work around hate crime will merely sustain a self-serving ‘industry’ which lacks the capacity to make a meaningful difference to the lives of victims of these offences.