Inside the Little Plastic Castle

My counter to the 'vulnerable' argument is that it's context dependent. Anyone can be vulnerable, even special forces guys, if the context of the immediate situation puts them at risk. Most disabled people are no more 'vulnerable' than anyone else. But unfortunately the law doesn't see it that way.

WRT sentence length, I don't see tariff uplifts as an effective deterrent measure (and our sentences are in general much shorter than yours, so proportionally the uplifts are probably more significant), because the average hate crime perpetrator is too stupid to know about them, but I do see them as essential to making the courts and judiciary treat the cases seriously enough.