hate crime research paper outline

Hate Crimes Research Paper

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A hate crime is a crime committed as an act of prejudice against the person or property of a victim as a result of that victim’s real or perceived membership in a particular group. Many of the most notorious hate crimes have been murders, such as the racially motivated murder of James Byrd, Jr., in Texas in 1998 or the homophobicmotivated murder of Matthew Shepard in North Dakota later that same year. The vast majority of hate crimes, however, are cases of assault or vandalism.

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The critical identifying element of hate crimes is the bias motivation of the perpetrator. The distinguishing factor can be obscured by the very term hate crime , which is the popular term used in connection with bias-motivated violence. In fact, bias crime is a more accurate label. Many if not most crimes are motivated by hatred of one kind or another. Not every crime that is motivated by hatred for the victim is a bias crime. Hatebased violence causes a bias crime only when this hatred is connected with antipathy for a group, such as a racial or ethnic group, or for an individual because of membership in that group. In some form, virtually every state in the United States expressly criminalizes bias crimes.

Elements of Bias Crimes

Bias crime statutes in the United States encompass crimes that are motivated by the race, color, ethnicity, national origin, or religion of the victim. Many reach sexual orientation or gender as well, and some include other categories such as age or disability. Bias crime laws may either create a specific crime of bias-motivated violence or raise the penalty of a crime when committed with bias motivation.

The key factor in identifying an actor as a bias criminal is the motivation for the conduct. Bias crimes are unusual but not unique in their focus on motivation rather than the traditional focus on intent. Some scholars have criticized bias crime laws on this basis, a critique that is addressed below.

There are two analytically distinct, albeit somewhat overlapping models of bias crimes. These models may be referred to as the discriminatory selection model and the group animus model . (In this terminology, group is used to represent all group characteristics that constitute bias crimes, such as ethnicity, race, or religion.)

The discriminatory selection model of bias crimes defines these crimes in terms of the perpetrator’s selection of his victim. It is irrelevant why an offender selected his victim on the basis of race or other group; it is sufficient that the offender did so. The discriminatory selection model received much attention because it was a statute of this model that was upheld by the Supreme Court in Wisconsin v. Mitchell , 508 U.S. 476 (1993). The group animus model of bias crimes defines crimes on the basis of a perpetrator’s animus for the group of the victim and the centrality of this animus in the perpetrator’s motivation for committing the crime. Florida and Massachusetts, among other states, have adopted group animus bias crimes laws. Many and perhaps most cases of discriminatory selection are in fact also cases of group animus bias crimes, but not all. A purse snatcher, for example, who preys solely on women, finding it more efficient to grab purses than to pick wallets out of men’s pockets, would have discriminatorily selected a victim on the basis of gender, but not with group animus.

Most states with bias crime laws have adopted statutes that draw on both models. These laws provide enhanced sentences for crimes committed ‘‘because of ’’ or ‘‘by reason of ’’ the victim’s real or perceived membership in a particular group. Although these statutes lack explicit reference either to discriminatory selection or animus, they share attributes of both. ‘‘Because of ’’ statutes look to the perpetrator’s selection of the victim. In addition, particularly in those states that require a finding of maliciousness, ‘‘because of ’’ statutes are akin to animus as well.

Under any of these models, bias crimes can arise out of mixed motivation where the perpetrator of a violent crime is motivated by a number of different factors in the commission of the crime, bias among them. To constitute a bias crime, the bias motivation must be a substantial motivation for the perpetrator’s criminal conduct. Under the Supreme Court decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey , 120 S.Ct. 2348 (2000), all elements of a bias crime must be submitted to a jury (or judge as a trier of fact) and proven beyond a reasonable doubt; a sentence enhancement for a bias crime may not be imposed on a finding by preponderance of evidence by the sentencing judge.

How Bias Crimes Differ from Other Crimes

The justification for bias crime laws turns primarily on the manner in which bias crimes differ from other crimes. Bias crimes cause greater harm than parallel crimes , that is, those crimes that lack a prejudicial motivation but are otherwise identical to the bias crime. This is true on three levels: harm to the individual victim, the victim’s group or community, and the society at large.

Bias crimes generally have a more harmful emotional and psychological impact on the individual victim. The victim of a bias crime is not attacked for a random reason (e.g., the person injured during a drive-by shooting) nor for an impersonal reason (e.g., the victim of a violent robbery). Rather the victim of a bias crime is attacked for a specific, personal reason: for example, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Moreover, the bias crime victim cannot reasonably minimize the risks of future attacks because the victim is unable to change the characteristic that made him a victim in the first place. The heightened sense of vulnerability caused by bias crimes is beyond that normally found in crime victims. Studies have suggested that the victims of bias crimes tend to experience psychological symptoms such as depression or withdrawal, as well as anxiety, feelings of helplessness, and a profound sense of isolation.

The impact of bias crimes reaches beyond the harm done to the immediate victim or victims of the criminal behavior. There is a more widespread impact on the ‘‘target community’’—that is, the community that shares the race, religion, ethnicity, or other group characteristic of the victim. The target community experiences bias crime in a manner that has no equivalent in the public response to parallel crimes. The reaction of the target community goes beyond mere sympathy with the immediate victim. Members of the target community of a bias crime perceive that crime as if it were an attack on themselves directly and individually.

Finally, the impact of bias crimes may spread beyond the immediate victims and the target community to the general society. This effect may be seen on a number of levels, and includes a spectrum of harms from the very concrete to the most abstract. On the most prosaic level—but by no means least damaging—the isolation effects discussed above have a cumulative effect throughout a community. Members of the community, even those who are sympathetic to the plight of the victim family, may be reluctant to place themselves or their children in harm’s way, and will shy away from socializing with the victims, thus exacerbating the problems associated with social isolation.

Bias crimes cause an even broader injury to the general community. Such crimes violate not only society’s general concern for the security of its members and their property but also the shared value of equality among its citizens and racial and religious harmony in a heterogeneous society. A bias crime is therefore a profound violation of the egalitarian ideal and the antidiscrimination principle that have become fundamental not only to the American legal system but to American culture as well. Indeed, when a legislature defines the groups that are to be included in a bias crime law, it unavoidably makes a normative statement as to the role of certain groups or characteristics. Bias crime laws are concerned with those characteristics that implicate social fissure lines, divisions that run deep into the social history of a culture. Thus every bias crime law in the United States includes race as a category; racial discrimination, with its earliest roots in slavery, is the clearest example of a social fissure line in American society. Strong cases can similarly be made for the other classic bias crime categories—color, ethnicity, religion, and national origin. When a state legislature debates the inclusion of other categories to its bias crime law, the debate is partly over the place of those groups in society. Drafting the scope of a bias crime law is necessarily a process that includes the locating of social fissure lines.

Scope of The Problem

Although there is some reason to believe that the level of bias crimes increased over the last two decades of the twentieth century, it remains difficult to gauge whether the bias crime problem has actually worsened. During the 1980s, public concern over the level of bias-motivated violence in the United States rose dramatically. Such concern and the consequent enactment of bias crime statutes across the United States probably stemmed, at least in part, from an apparent worsening of the bias crime problem. Statistics from both independent and governmental datagathering organizations support the conclusion that bias crime increased over the course of the 1980s and, to a large extent, leveled off during the 1990s. These statistics, however, remain inconsistent and incomplete. Moreover, the statistics gathered toward the end of the 1980s and throughout the early to mid-1990s reflected not only a growth in the bias crime problem, but also a growth in legislative and administrative awareness of the problem.

In general, experts and commentators on bias crime agree that these crimes had, throughout the mid and late 1980s and early 1990s, increased annually. The main organizations that collect data on the subject of bias-motivated violence—the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force—all reported such persistent growth.

In 1990 Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) in an effort to provide official statistics concerning the level of bias crimes. Under this act, the Department of Justice must collect statistics on the incidence of bias crimes in the United States as a part of its regular information-gathering system. The Attorney General delegated the development and implementation of the HCSA to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program for incorporation among its sixteen thousand voluntary law enforcement agency participants. Beginning with the HCSA’s implementation in 1991 and through the early 1990s, the F.B.I. documented a general rise in bias crimes. However, these figures, like those reported by other data-gathering organizations, remain vulnerable to charges of inaccuracy. Because the F.B.I.’s numbers simply mirror the numbers reported by state and local law enforcement agencies, and because agency participation under the HCSA is voluntary, the completed data more aptly reflect popular perception of the bias crime problem rather than the problem itself.

There is a mutual-feedback relationship between the bias crime problem and both the popular perception and official response to the problem. A perceived increase in bias crime as fostered by independent data-gathering and reporting leads to increased public concern regarding such crimes. Such concern leads, in succession, to legislative and administrative response, to increased official reporting, and, in effect, to an even greater perceived increase in bias crime. Thus, problem and perception conflate, and the apparent growth in bias crime becomes not simply a reflection of increased hatred and apathy (as the statistics alone would suggest) but also an indication of increased understanding and action (as the increased response to the problem suggests).

On the other hand, there is reason to believe that, despite increased bias crime reporting by police agencies, a majority of bias crime victims do not report incidents at all. Victims’ distrust of the police, language barriers, and fear of either retaliation by the offender or public exposure generally may well lead to systemic underreporting of bias crimes.

In addition to all of the problems with measuring the current level of bias crimes, there is a significant problem with establishing a baseline for a meaningful comparison. Data collection on the levels of bias crimes prior to the mid-1980s was virtually nonexistent. For example, it was not until 1978 that the Boston City Police Department became the first law enforcement agency to track bias-motivated crimes; it was not until 1981 that Maryland became the first state to pass a reporting statute.

It is thus not possible to say with confidence the extent to which bias crimes are increasing and the extent to which the increase is one of perception. However, the obvious relationship between perception and problem in no way undercuts the severity of the problem. Whatever the difficulties of measuring bias crime levels with precision, the existence of a serious level of bias-motivated crime is confirmed. Moreover, the mutual-feedback relationship between the level of bias crime and the popular perception of this level does not necessarily undermine a determination of the severity of the problem. As the understanding of what constitutes a bias crime is broadened, that which may have been dismissed as a ‘‘prank’’ in an earlier time is now properly revealed as bias-motivated criminal conduct. This does not mean that bias crimes are being overcounted; rather it means that previously these crimes were undercounted.

Critique of Bias Crimes

The enhanced punishment of bias-motivated violence has been criticized on a number of grounds. One critique argues that bias crime laws punish thoughts and not criminal acts. This critique itself takes two forms: a constitutional argument that bias crime laws violate the First Amendment right to free expression of ideas, and a criminal law theory argument that bias crime laws improperly focus on motivation rather than mens rea. An additional critique, which applies only to federal bias crime laws, involves questions of federalism and the constitutional authority for such legislation.

The free expression challenges to bias crime laws were the subject of a great deal of scholarly attention as well as a number of judicial opinions. Judicial consideration of the issue culminated in two Supreme Court decisions, R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul , 505 U.S. 377 (1992), which struck down a municipal cross-burning ordinance, and Wisconsin v. Mitchell , which upheld a state law that provided for increased penalties for bias crimes. Three general positions have emerged among observers concerning the challenge to bias crime laws based in principles of free expression. One position argues that bias crime laws unconstitutionally punish thought because the increased punishment is due solely to the defendant’s expression of a conviction of which the community disapproves. A second position permits the enhanced punishment of bias crimes, arguing that bias motivations and hate speech are not protected by the First Amendment. Ironically, these two opposing positions share a common premise: that bias crime laws do involve the regulation of expression.

The third position distinguishes between hate speech and bias crimes, protecting the former but permitting the enhanced punishment of the latter. This has been understood in two related ways. One approach is based on the distinction between speech and conduct, protecting hate speech as the former and punishing bias crimes as the latter. This is the approach adopted by the Court in Wisconsin v. Mitchell . An alternative approach focuses on the perpetrator’s state of mind, and distinguishes behavior that is intended to communicate from behavior that is intended to cause focused and individualized harm to a targeted victim.

The critique that bias crime laws punish bad thoughts rather than criminal acts also has been based on criminal law doctrine. This argument criticizes bias crime laws for impermissibly straying beyond the punishment of act and purposeful intent to reach the punishment of motivation. The argument rests on the assertion that motive can be distinguished from mens rea, based on the formal distinction between motive and intent: intent concerns the mental state provided in the definition of an offense in order to assess the actor’s culpability with respect to the elements of the offense, whereas motive concerns the cause that drives the actor to commit the offense.

Several responses have been made to this critique. First, as a matter of positive law, concern with the punishment of motivation may be misplaced. Motive often determines punishment. In those states with capital punishment, the defendant’s motivation for the homicide stands prominent among the recognized aggravating factors that may contribute to the imposition of the death sentence. For instance, the motivation of profit in murder cases is a significant aggravating factor adopted in most capital sentencing schemes. Bias motivation itself may serve as an aggravating circumstance. In Barclay v. Florida , 463 U.S. 939 (1983), the Supreme Court explicitly upheld the use of racial bias as an aggravating factor in the sentencing phase of a capital case. The Court reaffirmed Barclay in Dawson v. Delaware , 503 U.S. 159 (1992).

A second response to this critique of bias crime laws more broadly questions the usefulness of the formal distinction between intent and motive, arguing that the decision as to what constitutes motive and what constitutes intent largely turns on what is being criminalized. Criminal statutes define the elements of the crime and a mental state applies to each element. The mental state that applies to an element of the crime is ‘‘intent’’ whereas any mental states that are extrinsic to the elements are ‘‘motivation.’’ The formal distinction, therefore, turns on the elements of the crime. What is a matter of intent in one context may be a matter of motive in another. There are two equally accurate descriptions of a bias-motivated assault: the perpetrator possessed a (i) mens rea of purpose with respect to the assault along with a motivation of bias; or (ii) a mens rea of purpose with respect to the parallel crime of assault and a mens rea of purpose with respect to assaulting this victim because of group identification. The defendant in description (i) ‘‘intends’’ to assault the victim and does so because the defendant is a bigot. The defendant in description (ii) ‘‘intends’’ to commit an assault and does so with both an intent to assault and a discriminatory or animus-driven intent as to the selection of the victim. Both descriptions are accurate. The formal distinction between intent and motive may thus bear less weight than some critics have placed upon it. Whether bias crime laws punish motivation or intent is not inherent in those prohibitions. Rather the distinction mirrors the way in which the law describes these crimes.

The federalism challenges to the constitutionality of a federal bias crime law arise from the fact that the vast majority of bias crimes are state law crimes that are motivated by bias. The question of constitutional authority for a federal bias crime law is especially pressing after the Supreme Court’s decisions in United States v. Morrison , 120 S.Ct. 1740 (2000), striking down the civil remedy provisions of the Violence Against Women Act, and United States v. Lopez , 514 U.S. 549 (1995), striking down the Federal Gun-Free Zones Act. Each decision held that the legislation in question exceeded Congress’ authority under the commerce clause. It is partially for this reason that, at the time of writing, there is no pure federal bias crimes statute. Bias motivation is an element of certain federal civil rights crimes such as 18 U.S.C. § 245. Moreover, in 1994, Congress directed the U.S. Sentencing Commission to promulgate guidelines enhancing the penalties for any federal crimes that are motivated by bias. These statutes, however, cover only a small range of cases involving bias motivation.

After Morrison and Lopez , the commerce clause, the constitutional authority for civil rights legislation during the 1960s barring discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment, is a more doubtful source for constitutional authority for a federal bias crime law. A more promising source for such authority may lie in the post–Civil War constitutional amendments, at least for bias crimes involving racial, ethnic, and possibly religious motivation. In enacting section 245, Congress expressly relied, in part, upon the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments as authority for the federalization of biasmotivated deprivation of certain specified rights individuals hold under state law. Not all bias crimes deprive the victim of the ability to exercise some right under state law. It has been argued, however, that the Thirteenth Amendment as well provides constitutional authority for a federal bias crime law. The modern view of the Thirteenth Amendment, articulated in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer , 392 U.S. 409 (1968), and Runyon v. McCrary , 427 U.S. 160 (1976), understands the amendment as a constitutional proscription of all the ‘‘badges and incidents’’ of slavery, authorizing Congress to make any rational determination as to what constitutes a badge or incident of slavery and to ban such conduct, whether from public or private sources. The abolition of slavery in the Thirteenth Amendment, although immediately addressed to the enslavement of AfricanAmericans, has been held to apply beyond the context of race to include ethnic groups and perhaps religions as well. The Thirteen Amendment would not, however, provide constitutional authority for elements of a federal bias crime law reaching sexual orientation, gender, or other categories.

Bibliography:

• ALTSCHILLER, DONALD. Hate Crimes: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 1999.
• Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Hate Crimes Laws: A Comprehensive Guide. New York: Anti-Defamation League, 1994.
• BOWLING, BENJAMIN. Violent Racism: Victimisation, Policing, and Social Context. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1998.
• Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice. A Policymaker’s Guide to Hate Crimes. Washington, D.C.: Department of Justice, 1997.
• DILLOF, ANTHONY. ‘‘Punishing Bias: An Examination of the Theoretical Foundations of Bias Crime Statues.’’ Northwestern University Law Review 91 (1997): 1015.
• KELLY, ROBERT, ed. Bias Crime: American Law Enforcement and Legal Responses. Chicago: University of Illinois, 1991.
• JACOBS, JAMES, and POTTER, KIMBERLY. Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
• LAWRENCE, FREDERICK ‘‘The Punishment of Hate: Toward a Normative Theory of Bias-Motivated Violence.’’ Michigan Law Review 93 (1994): 320.
• LAWRENCE, FREDERICK Punishing Hate: Bias Crimes Under American Law. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University press, 1999.
• LEVIN, JACK, and MCDEVITT, JACK. Hate Crimes: The Rising Tide of Bigotry and Bloodshed. New York: Plenum Press, 1993.
• WANG, LU-IN. Hate Crimes Law. Paul, Minn.: Clark, Boardman & Callaghan, 1997.

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Expert Commentary

Hate crimes and research questions: Examining racial, ethnic and religious bias

2015 review of research and data that speak to issues of hate crimes motivated by bias, with a focus on definitional issues in the United States and patterns abroad.

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by Joanna Penn, The Journalist's Resource June 18, 2015

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The mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., again raises questions about the frequency and extent of hate crimes in America.

The FBI notes in a December 2014 report : “ Of the reported 3,407 single-bias hate crime offenses that were racially motivated, 66.4 percent were motivated by anti-black or African-American bias, and 21.4 percent stemmed from anti-white bias.” It remains the case that African-Americans are the victims of bias-motivated crimes at much higher rates than all other racial or ethnic groups, and as frequently noted , the official numbers likely represent a significant under-count.

While the 2015 Charleston incident appears to be plainly hate-motivated, many are not as clear-cut. The February 2015 shooting of three Muslim college students at Chapel Hill, N.C., raised a number of difficult questions: Should the killings be labeled as a hate crime ? Was the relative lack of media coverage due to the victims’ religion? These discussions have widened to the question of why hate crimes are so hard to prove and rarely prosecuted . This seems to be reflected in updated statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS): It estimated that 293,800 nonfatal violent and property hate crimes occurred in the U.S. in 2012, with an estimated 60% not reported to the police.

While the new figures are not statistically different from the BJS estimates for 2004 (of 281,700 hate crimes) the details show significant changes in the motivations behind the crimes. The proportion motivated by ethnicity bias more than doubled from 22% in 2004 to 51% in 2012; 28% were motivated by religious bias, nearly triple the 10% rate in 2004; and those motivated by gender bias went from 12% to 26%, more than double. (The percentages add up to more than 100% because some crimes may have multiple biases.)

Reporting and definitional issues

One of the most complex areas of debate is how to define hate crimes precisely and uniformly and ensure consistent enforcement and categorization. A 2015 study published in the American Journal of Criminal Justice , “The Effect of Law on Hate Crime Reporting: The Case of Racial and Ethnic Violence,” examines this question, analyzing how evolving definitions of hate crimes across states may or may not affect the rates at which such acts are designated and reported publicly by law enforcement. The researcher, Michele Stacey of East Carolina University, looked at Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics from 2000 to 2007, as well as demographic, economic and political data that could help contextualize rates of reporting.

The FBI categorizes and publicizes these criminal acts through its Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) Hate Crime Statistics Program . For the purposes of statistical collection, Congress has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.” U.S. states must determine that crimes meet that definition when they report them to the FBI, but they have different laws on their books — indeed, Wyoming, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana and South Carolina do not have clear statutes recognizing bias-motivated crime, as do the other 45 states — and vary in their approach to enforcement and categorization. Ultimately, the study focuses on how the demographics of states and the size of minority populations appear to influence the number of hate crimes reported.

The study’s findings include:

• The data suggest overall that that there is a “relationship between the type of hate crime law on the books and the reporting of hate crime by the police.” Where laws are broader — making the designation of hate crimes less strict — there are generally more hate crimes reported.
• Demographic factors, including the size and relative political power of minority groups, seem to influence the reporting of hate crimes: “While states that criminalize violations of a person’s civil rights report more anti-black incidents and states with broader hate-crime definitions report more anti-Hispanic hate crime, that relationship is attenuated by the presence of a larger minority group and greater minority political power.”
• Somewhat surprisingly, “the minority’s ability to mobilize politically combined with a large group size results in fewer hate crimes.” Indeed, “more hate crimes are reported generally where minority-group size is small in relation to white population size.”
• After the factors of “racial composition and economic and political competition” were taken into account, the breadth of state hate-crime statutes had little effect on the number of anti-black hate crimes. This suggests that there are important differences between how laws influence police actions around racial (anti-black) and ethnic hate crimes (anti-Hispanic).

“The reported level of hate crime is likely a factor of both the true number of crimes committed as well as the reporting behaviors of victims and the police,” Stacey concludes. “Future research should endeavor to disentangle the reporting practices of jurisdiction from the true prevalence of hate crime to determine whether this is the case.”

Terrorism and international backlash

The issues of prejudice and violence against Muslim minorities are of particular concern in Europe in the wake of high-profile terrorist acts perpetrated by Islamic extremists.

A 2014 study in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice , “Hate Crime in the Wake of Terror Attacks: Evidence from 7/7 and 9/11,” investigates whether terrorist incidents can be statistically linked to increases in hate crimes in the United Kingdom. After the 2001 and 2005 attacks in New York and London, respectively, there were anecdotal reports of spikes in hate crimes against perceived Muslim populations, but little statistical evidence. The study’s authors, Emma Hanes and Stephen Machin of University College London, use data from four police-force areas in England with substantial Asian and Arab populations to measure hate crimes against those groups before and after the terror attacks, relative to those against blacks and whites.

The findings include:

• In the month of the July 7, 2005, attacks in London, there was a 27% increase in hate crimes against Asians and Arabs. While the effects fell in later months, the number of attacks remained substantially higher than before the bombings — 17% higher in the three months after the attacks and 10% to 15% higher a year after the event.
• The immediate impact on hate crime was greater in London, where the attacks occurred, with a 32% increase. This is compared to the other police-force areas in the study — Leicestershire, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire.
• The subsequent rate of decrease in the attacks’ effects also differed by area, with no impact in London a year after the attacks, but a persistent and strong effect in the areas outside London. Two possible explanations were suggested: First, long-standing race issues in the study areas outside London “have engendered deeper-seated issues of anger and resentment.” Second, the authors point to greater levels of migration in London, leading to a more dynamic population environment in which adjustment can take place more quickly.
• Analysis for the effects after the 9/11 attacks is more limited as changes in the reporting requirements meant that trends could only be measured until April 2002, and data limitations excluded one police-force area from the analysis. Nevertheless, the study finds strong effects from 9/11 on hate crimes against Asians and Arabs, with levels rising by 28% in September 2001, reducing to 22% three months after the attacks and 11% after six months.

The authors conclude that the similar patterns in hate crimes against Asian and Arab populations after 7/7 and 9/11 makes it highly likely that they can be causally linked to the terror attacks themselves. This is in line with previous academic literature that suggests that for individuals, the costs of such terror attacks are not limited to the victims of the attacks themselves. Hanes and Machin point out that this makes the causes of hate crime “different from, or certainly more complex than, the kind of incentive or deterrence effects that emerge as crime determinants in the standard economics of the crime model.”

Related research: A 2014 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), “Causal Effect of Intergroup Contact on Exclusionary Attitudes,” explores the precise mechanism that can cause negative attitudes toward other ethnic, racial or religious groups. A 2011 study from Virginia Union University and the University of Missouri, “The Impact of Immigration on Anti-Hispanic Hate Crime in the United States,” analyzes FBI, Census and Department of Homeland Security data to determine incidence levels of anti-Hispanic hate crime in periods and places with higher levels of immigration.

Keywords: hate crime, terror attacks, law, prejudice, terrorism

About The Author

Joanna Penn

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The Centre for Hate Studies

• Hate Studies
• The Leicester Hate Crime Project

Briefing papers

The briefing papers outline the standout findings on disablist, homophobic, racist, religiously motivated hate crimes and gendered hostility. The areas covered include:

• The impact of being targeted
• Concerns about future victimisation
• The profile of offenders
• The reporting of hate crimes
• The value of support services supplied to victims

Briefing Paper 1: Disablist Hate Crime (PDF, 174kb)

Briefing paper 2: gendered hostility (pdf, 175kb), briefing paper 3: homophobic hate crime (pdf, 171kb), briefing paper 4: racist hate crime (pdf, 175kb), briefing paper 5: religiously motivated hate crime (pdf, 175kb).

Research Paper

Hate crime research paper.

This sample Hate Crime Research Paper is published for educational and informational purposes only. Like other free research paper examples, it is not a custom research paper. If you need help writing your assignment, please use our custom writing services and buy a paper on any of the criminal justice research paper topics .  This sample research paper on hate crime features: 7500+ words (27 pages), an outline, APA format in-text citations, and a bibliography with 27 sources.

I. Introduction

Ii. hate crime laws, a. for and against hate crime legislation, b. federal and state hate crime laws, iii. hate crime statistics, a. national hate crime statistics reported through summary ucr, b. national hate crime statistics through ncvs, iv. hate crime theory, a. group conflict theory, b. social learning theory, c. strain theory, v. hate crime perpetrators, a. characteristics of hate crime perpetrators, b. situational factors associated with hate crime, c. emerging typology, vi. organized hate group members, vii. hate crime victims, a. problems in identifying hate crime victims, b. hate crime victim types, 1. hate crimes based on race and ethnicity, 2. hate crimes based on religion, 3. hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity, 4. hate crimes based on disability, 5. hate crimes based on gender, viii. responding to hate crime, a. police response to hate crime, b. courts’ response to hate crime, ix. preventing hate crime.

A. Preventing Hate Crime Through Education

B. Anti-Hate Organizations

X. conclusion.

The term hate crime became part of the American lexicon in 1985 when it was coined by United States Representatives John Conyers and Mario Biaggi. Although the term hate crime and societal interest in it are relatively recent developments, hate crime has deep historical roots. Throughout U.S. history, a significant proportion of all murders, assaults, and acts of vandalism and desecration have been fueled by hatred. As Native Americans have been described as the first hate crime victims, hate crimes have existed since the United States’ inception. Since then, members of all immigrant groups have been subjected to discrimination, harassment, and violence.

Although there are variations in definition, and certainly variations among state hate crime laws, in general a hate crime is considered to be an illegal act against a person, institution, or property that is motivated (in whole or in part) by the offender’s prejudice against the victim’s group membership status. Although not all jurisdictions, academics, or professionals agree about who should be protected by hate crime laws, the majority of such laws describe the offender’s motivation based on prejudice against the victim’s, race, color, nationality, religion, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability status.

While hate crime behavior has a long history, it has only been in the last couple of decades that research to understand this type of crime has been conducted. The purpose of this research paper is to present the hate crime knowledge that has accumulated over these last decades. This research paper will present the history of hate crime law, the scope of the problem, the theory and psychology behind hateful/prejudicial behaviors, characteristics of perpetrators and victims, policing hate crime, and responding to and preventing hate crime.

Proponents of hate crime laws feel strongly about society making a statement that biased (or hate) crimes will not be tolerated and that serious penalties will be applied to those who commit such crimes. In addition, these laws are important in order to deter potential hate crime offenders who intentionally target members of subordinate groups. Hate crime laws are also symbolic and promote social cohesion by officially stating that victimization of people who are “different” is not accepted or tolerated in a modern society.

There have also been arguments against the formation of hate crime laws. Not all believe that hate crimes have been a significant problem in society; rather, some see it as a media-exaggerated issue—a product of a society that is highly sensitive to prejudice and discrimination. Thus, a special set of criminal laws that include hate is not warranted, and the generic criminal laws will suffice. Those who oppose hate crime laws also argue that attempting to determine motivation for an already criminal act is difficult and may pose moral problems in that the offender is being punished for a criminal act and for his or her motivation. It has also been argued that hate crime laws do not deter people from engaging in these crimes. Others argue that the disagreement over which subordinate groups to include in the hate crime laws actually causes added discrimination and marginalization. Critics state that what these laws effectively are saying is that one group is more worthy of protection and care than another. Critics also wonder why anger/hate is more punishable than other motives such as greed. Although there has been (and still is) debate about hate crime laws, the mere fact that they exist in several countries around the world, as well as within the United States, indicates that reasoning in favor of these laws has outweighed that against them.

Hate crime laws in the United States exist at the federal and state levels. Although federal and state laws differ, most protected characteristics include race, national origin, ethnicity, and religion. Some laws also include sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability. The federal hate crime system includes laws, acts, and data collection statutes. The current federal hate crime law permits federal prosecution of crimes committed based upon the victim’s race, color, religion, or nation of origin when the victim is engaging in a federally protected activity (e.g., attending a public school; working at a place of employment). The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2007 (i.e., the Matthew Shepard Act), which is under consideration as of this writing, would extend the existing federal hate crime law to include crimes based upon the victim’s gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability, and would drop the existing requirement that the victim be involved in a federally protected activity. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 requires that the U.S. Sentencing Commission enhance criminal penalties (up to 30%) for offenders who commit a federal crime that was motivated by the victim’s race, religion, color, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation.

There are two federal data collection statutes. The first, the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990, requires that the U.S. Attorney General collect data on all crimes that are motivated by the victim’s race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. Since 1992, the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have jointly published hate crime statistics on an annual basis. The Campus Hate Crimes Right to Know Act of 1997 requires college and university campus security authorities to collect and report data on crimes committed on the basis of the victim’s race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and disability.

The majority of states have some sort of hate crime legislation, but it differs from state to state. For example, some states treat hate crimes as low-severity offenses, while other states have more general hate crime laws or sentence enhancing for crimes that are motivated by bias. In some states, maximum criminal sentences may be doubled, tripled, or increased even more for a hate crime. The states also differ in the subordinate groups that transform a general crime to a hate crime and as to what degree this bias must be shown (e.g., beliefs, character). All state statutes include at least race, religion, and ethnicity, but differ on inclusion of other subordinate groups. For example, about 70% of the states also include gender and sexual orientation, while fewer include disability, political affiliation, or age.

At the national level, data on hate crimes come from two principal resources: the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). In addition, several anti-hate groups collect data and report rates of hate crime victimization at both the national and regional levels. It is important to note that each agency collects the data in a different manner and thus, each report varies in terms of rates, types, and focus of hate crime. For example, since the NCVS collects information through anonymous surveys, the rates of hate crime are significantly higher than the official police records reported in the UCR. Also, since state laws differ, what is considered a hate crime in one state may not be considered a hate crime in another state and therefore may not be counted in the UCR. Thus, data reporting sources differ on the number and types of hate crimes reported.

Based on the hate crime reports from law enforcement agencies across the United States, the UCR data reflect aggregate frequencies of incidents, victims, suspected offenders, and categories of bias motivation. Since 1991, participation in the program has increased substantially from 29% to 85% of the United States population being represented. Nationally, the number of hate crimes reported has fluctuated between about 6,000 and 10,000 incidents annually since 1991 (U.S. Department of Justice, FBI, 2008).

Historically, racial animosity consistently has been the leading motivation for hate crime, followed by religious intolerance, and sexual orientation bias motives. According to the FBI’s most recent report, Hate Crime Statistics, 2006, a total of 7,772 criminal incidents involving 9,080 offenses and 9,652 victims were reported in 2006 as a result of bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability. The majority of hate crime incidents, 51.8%, were motivated by racial bias, and an additional 12.7% were driven by hatred for a particular ethnicity or nationality. Roughly 19% were motivated by religious intolerance, and 15.5% were triggered by bias against a sexual orientation. One percent involved bias against physical or mental disabilities (U.S. Department of Justice, FBI, 2008).

Sixty-six percent of racial bias incidents were anti-black, and 22% were anti-white. Fifty-eight percent of ethnicity bias incidents were anti-Hispanic. Sixty-six percent of religious bias incidents were anti-Jewish, while 11% were anti-Islamic. According to data for the 7,330 known offenders reported in 2006, an estimated 58.6 percent were white, and 20.6% were black. The race of the offender was unknown for 12.9%, and other races accounted for the remaining known offenders. The majority (31.0%) of hate crime incidents in 2006 occurred in or near residences or homes; followed by 18.0% on highways, roads, alleys, or streets; 12.2% at colleges or schools; 6.1% in parking lots or garages; and 3.9% at churches, synagogues, or temples. The remaining 28.8% of hate crime incidents occurred at other specified locations, multiple locations, or other/ unknown locations.

On July 1, 2000, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), a branch of the U.S. Department of Justice, initiated the addition of new items to the National Crime Victimization Survey that are designed to uncover hate crime victimizations that go underreported to the police. The NCVS hate crime questions ask victims about the basis for their belief that the crime they experienced was motivated by prejudice or bigotry, as well as the specific behavior of the offender or evidence that may have led to the victim’s perception of bias. Crimes reported to the NCVS—sexual assaults, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, or vandalism—with evidence of hatred toward any of these specific groups are classified as crimes motivated by hate. However, NCVS does not include crimes covered by the UCR, such as murder, arson, commercial crimes, and crimes against children under the age of 12. In addition, the NCVS does not include reports of crime from institutions, organizations, churches, schools, and businesses, although persons involved in these entities are included. The data for hate crimes from the NCVS include information about victims, offenders, and characteristics of crimes—both crimes reported to police and those not reported (U.S. Department of Justice, BJS, 2008).

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics special report on victims derived from the NCVS from July 2000 through December 2003, an annual average of 210,000 hate crime victimizations occurred. During that period, an average of 191,000 hate crime incidents involving one or more victims occurred annually in the United States. About 3% of all violent crimes and 0.2% of all property crimes revealed to the NCVS by victims were perceived to be hate crimes. Victims also indicated that 92,000 of these hate crime victimizations (approximately 44%) were reported to police. That is, NCVS data indicate that the majority of hate crime victims, like victims of many other crimes, do not report the incident to law enforcement. When the victims themselves reported to police, they did so primarily to prevent the offender from committing further offenses (35%) and to obtain help from the police (33%).

It is important to note that although several explanations may be applicable to prejudice and hate crime occurrence, no existing criminological theory can fully account for the transformation from prejudice into criminal behavior. Experts argue that in order to explain hate crimes, consideration of the interplay of a number of different factors (social, psychological, criminogenic, and contextual) as well as a wide range of aspects that contribute to hate crime (i.e., perpetrators’ motives, victims’ characteristics, and cultural ideologies about the victims’ social groups) is necessary. The criminological theories most often employed to explain hate crime are group conflict theory, social learning theory, and strain theory.

This theory is based on the fact that humans are more likely to have relationships with other humans holding similar presuppositions for the purpose of comfort, ease, and friendliness, which in turn contributes to the formation of “in-groups” and “out-groups.” The formation and development of in-group loyalty serve strong individual desires for relationship and acceptance.

In-group versus out-group conflict strongly facilitates group cohesiveness, affiliation, and identity. In addition, such conflict increases out-group rejection, as revealed by group members’ tendencies to stress between-group dissimilarities and ignore between-group similarities. Out-groups are often stereotyped, dehumanized, or perceived as dishonest or malicious, whereas the in-group is idealized as good, powerful, and wholly justified in its views and actions toward others. Previous research has consistently shown that organized in-group preferences and out-group prejudices, and sometimes hostilities, even when the out-group was one with whom in-group members had never met, had never interacted, and about whom they knew very little.

Social learning theories suggest that attitudes, values, and beliefs about individuals who belong to specific groups are learned through interaction with influencing figures, such as peers and family who reward for adopting their views. Some of the literature on perpetrators of hate crimes stresses the impact of intimate acquaintances and family members, and the influence of localized social norms on the development of a child’s prejudice. According to social learning theory, the attitudes of parents profoundly affect a child’s prejudice, as a child grows up listening to those views. That is, prejudice toward specific targets is learned and reinforced through children’s interactions with their parents, and those relations may even provide both justifications and rewards for committing acts of violence or harassment against out-group members.

Strain theory holds that crime is a product of the gap between the culturally emphasized goals (e.g., success, wealth, and material possessions) and the legitimate means available to individuals to achieve those goals (e.g., access to high-quality education, participation in social networks). While society by its very nature pressures everyone to achieve those valued goals, not everyone is able to legitimately achieve success because of unemployment, poor education, lack of skills, and so on. Those who are unlikely to legitimately achieve the goals valued by society, according to strain theory, would be placed under a “strain.” In essence, then, the frustration, or strain, caused by the desire for “success” and the inability to achieve it legitimately gives rise to criminal behavior. It is achieving society’s goals that is important and not the means of achieving them.

Although hate crime and prejudice theories provide hypotheses for why individuals develop hatred or biases toward others, there is little information on how this prejudice/ bias translates into criminal or violent action. Research examining hate crime perpetrators has indicated the most common characteristic profile, situational factors associated with hate crime, an emerging typology, and knowledge of organized hate group members.

Contrary to common belief, most hate crimes are not committed by people who belong to organized hate groups, but are generally perpetrated by individuals who are considered to be “average” teenagers or young adults. In fact, studies indicate that the most common profile of a hate crime perpetrator is that of a young, white male, who perpetrates with a small group of individuals, has had little previous contact with the criminal justice system, and is not a member of an organized hate group. Although examining overall data on hate crime perpetrators to form a broad picture of the offender may be important, it is cautioned that not all such perpetrators fit this profile. For example, a percentage of hate crime perpetrators do belong to organized hate groups, are non-white, and range in age from teenage to older adult.

There are situational factors that seem to influence and interact with the human factors that affect the occurrence and the brutality of hate crime. These situational factors include that (a) the crime is often conducted in small groups, (b) the victim is most often a stranger, and (c) the crime is expressive (verbal harassment) rather than instrumental (physical aggression).

As previously mentioned, hate crimes are usually not committed by lone offenders, or by members of organized hate groups, but by small groups of young friends. This, coupled with the fact that most hate crime offenders do not have a history of hate crime perpetration, indicates that offender motivation for hate crime may have more to do with group dynamics than individual levels of bias or prejudice. Previous research on group and authority influence has unequivocally indicated its strong persuasive power. This strong influence stems from a few important dynamics. First, engaging in a group assault allows diffusion of responsibility. In other words, acting in a group allows each individual to “blame” the others and not take full responsibility for his or her actions or feel like he or she is anonymous. Second, since hate crime offenders are typically young males, there is a likelihood that each offender may attempt to impress the others as well as encourage another member in an effort to affiliate/identify with those individuals.

Two other factors that affect the brutality of hate crime are stranger victims and the motivation of offenders. Research indicates that it is much easier to dehumanize or hate a person who is not known personally. Thus, since hate crime perpetrators most often offend against strangers, this increases the likelihood that the victim will be dehumanized and hurt significantly more. In addition, since the motivation of the offenders is typically not instrumental (e.g., to gain money), there is no end point to the offending behavior. Offenses that are instrumental have a stopping point—the assault ends when the victim hands over his or her purse or wallet. Since hate crimes are expressive, there is no end point—making higher levels of brutality more likely.

In recent years, researchers have begun to examine possible types of hate crime offenders. Thus far, four types of hate crime perpetrators have been identified: thrill seekers, reactive/defensive, mission, and retaliatory (McDevitt, Levin, & Bennett, 2002). The most common type of hate crime offender is the thrill type. As stated previously, these are usually young males who act in groups. They do not belong to organized hate groups and describe their offense motivation as being bored or looking for some excitement. Although these individuals may have some level of prejudice/ bias, their motivation seems to be influenced more by thrill seeking and peer influence. Studies indicate that this type of hate crime offender accounts for approximately two thirds of hate crimes.

The second type is the reactive or defensive type. This offender type commits a hate crime because the person feels that his or her rights or territory has been invaded. For example, the offender may engage in a hate crime because he doesn’t feel like a subordinate group member should live in his neighborhood. The third type of hate crime perpetrator is the mission type. This type is the least frequent and usually includes those individuals who are organized hate group members on a “mission” to rid the world of what/who they consider to be immoral or wrong, or to keep a race “pure” and separate. The fourth type, the retaliatory type, commits hate crime in order to “get back at” or “get even with” a group because the perpetrator witnessed or heard of this group committing hate crime against his or her own group.

The Southern Poverty Law Center indicates that there are approximately 670 different hate groups in the United States. Most organized hate crime groups focus on one or more of the following: racial bias (e.g., anti-white or anti-black), religious bias (e.g., anti-Jewish or anti-Catholic), ethnic/national origin bias (e.g., anti-Arab or anti- Hispanic), or sexual orientation bias (e.g., anti-gay or anti-transgender). Although there is no single profile of an organized hate crime group member, research has indicated that it is not necessarily the individual’s bias/ prejudice that gets the person involved, but the need to affiliate. It seems an individual’s need to belong may make the person more susceptible to recruitment and then, once a member, to become biased against particular groups. In other words, racism may not cause someone to join a hate group, but joining the hate group may cause racism.

While trends and patterns can be identified, it is impossible to know exactly what percentage of hate crimes get reported to police. In general, many victims of hate crimes do not report the crime. In addition, once a hate crime is reported, there remain problems in recording, processing, and accurately accounting for all hate crime.

There are a variety of reasons why victims of hate crimes may not report the offense to the police. Nonreporting of hate crimes is primarily a consequence of lack of trust of the police, fear of discrimination, abuse and mistreatment by law enforcement, or belief that the police are not interested in investigating such crimes. Members of certain groups that are frequently targeted for hate crimes are particularly unlikely to report a hate crime because they have poor relations with the police. This situation is reflected in the huge differences in figures that are consistently found between official police records of hate incidents against blacks or homosexuals and national and local victim surveys.

Even when hate crimes are reported to the police, many potential barriers exist between the reporting of the crime, and the offender’s eventual conviction and “counting” of the event as a hate crime. These potential barriers include police officer bias against victims and their avoidance of recording because of the additional paperwork required by the department’s hate crime policy. In addition, what is and is not classified as a hate crime varies greatly across different states. The way that hate crime is defined by different jurisdictions greatly affects what, and how much, is recorded in the official figures. Therefore, there are serious difficulties in interpreting the data because important differences exist from officer to officer and agency to agency, as well as among the various states’ records.

Little is known about the experiences of hate crime victims. It is clear, however, that race is the most common motivation for hate crime in the United States, followed by religion and sexual orientation. Depending upon the particular state law, disabled individuals and women are also common victims of hate crimes.

Racial and ethnic differences are by far the most common motivation for hate crime. Of the different races and ethnicities in the United States, African Americans have been the most common victims of hate crimes. In addition, hate crimes on the basis of ethnicity are far from rare. Americans of Hispanic/Latino, Asian, or Middle Eastern ancestries have been victimized because of their ethnicity, no matter how long their family may have lived in the United States. Hatred against these people has a long history in America. During the same time that blacks were being victimized in the South (following the conclusion of the Civil War and up to and including the 1960s), Asian Americans and Mexican Americans were receiving similar treatment in the West and Southwest. Official discrimination based on ethnic group membership went on throughout the 20th century and continues into the 21st.

In reality, the boundaries between race/ethnicity and religion may be especially unclear. Agencies may have trouble determining the group of the victim because individuals do not always fit neatly into predetermined categories. For example, in early United States history, Irish immigrants were discriminated against because of their adherence to Catholicism. However, it is clear that historically anti- Semitism has been the most universal, deep, and persistent ethnic/religious prejudice, even predating the formation of the United States. Although the situation in the United States was considerably better than in Europe, anti-Semitism was common and served as the core of almost all white supremacist doctrine in the United States as well.

Anti-Semitism is hardly extinct today. A prime factor that contributes to the continuing existence of anti- Semitism is the persistent belief by many non-Jews that Jews killed Christ. For members of the Christian Identity church, for example, hatred of Jews is not only acceptable, but it is actually required. Another factor contributing to modern-day anti-Semitism is Zionism. Many people equate Jews with Israel. When Israel takes action with which non- Jews disagree, such as Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, some of the non-Jews blame all Jewish people.

Although anti-Semitism is the most common form of hate crime based on religion, since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon of September 11, 2001, there has been a drastic increase in hate crimes against people of the Muslim faith in the United States. For example, during 2001 (after 9/11), about 480 incidents were anti- Islamic in nature (U.S. Department of Justice, BJS, 2008).

Similar to biases based on race and ethnicity, heterosexism remains persistent in the United States. Despite recent improvement in attitudes toward gays, antigay violence is still common and widespread. The official data imply that homosexuals are one of the primary victims of hate crimes. What is unique about sexual orientation and gender identity victims is that they can also be members of any of the groups discussed in this research paper, as well as be a minority within their own family.

Antigay ideology remains institutionalized throughout America. Those who are already homophobic can defend their behaviors as socially acceptable. To those who are not especially biased but who are seeking thrills and excitement, as appears to be the case with the majority of hate crime offenders, many believe that gays are suitable targets. Another influence on antigay sentiment is religion; many religious organizations continue to denounce homosexuality, and others have pursued a specifically antigay agenda. In many cases, antigay and anti-transgender violence is probably also provoked by offenders’ perceptions that gays have violated gender roles, as gay men have voluntarily relinquished the privilege of male domination over women. Heterosexual men’s attitudes toward gay men are much more negative than those toward lesbians. Lesbians are seen as less threatening to masculinity and the male gender role. Thus, homosexual and transgendered men are significantly more likely to be victims of hate crime than lesbians and transgendered women.

As of 2006, a total of 29 of the 48 states that have hate crime laws include sexual orientation and 7 include gender identity. In addition, there are currently no federal hate crime laws that protect victims based upon sexual orientation or gender identity, even though these hate crimes tend to be the most brutal and deadly. In fact, transgendered males are significantly more likely to be murdered than all other groups including African American males (U.S. Department of Justice, BJS, 2008).

Each year the FBI records few hate crimes that were perpetrated based on the victim’s physical or mental disability. However, there is good reason to think that the true number is much higher. That is, some victims, especially those with mental disabilities, may be unable to report the crimes, police officers may be unlikely to categorize their victimization as a hate crime, and most states do not include disability in the law and therefore do not keep count of these crimes. Compared with all the other latent victims of hate crimes, disabled people are a highly vulnerable population. They are more likely to rely on other people who might take advantage of them for daily necessities, and they may be physically or mentally unable to protect themselves from predation. Some insist that crimes committed on the basis of disability should not be considered hate crimes because these offenders do not truly hate the victims; they are merely choosing them because they are vulnerable.

The inclusion of gender within hate crime laws has been controversial and currently is not included in federal law or in the UCR reporting of hate crime statistics. Some argue that there are potential dangers in treating gender-based crimes as hate crimes. One possibility is that, given the large number of rapes and domestic violence incidents, gender-based hate crimes could overwhelm the area of hate crimes, and other forms of bias-motivated crime might not get the attention they deserve. On the other hand, rape and domestic abuse, which surely merit consideration in their own right, could possibly receive less attention under the broader rubric of hate crimes.

Crimes motivated by hate and prejudice are nothing new; however, recent hate crime legislation has presented the criminal justice system and society with a unique type of offender.As stated previously, these crimes are distinctive in that they concern both criminal behavior and the motivation behind the behavior. Thus, most agree that the criminal justice system needs to consider both when responding to this type of offender.

Many, if not all, subordinate groups within the United States have had a number of hostile and prejudiced encounters with the police that have increased the likelihood that they will hold negative perceptions of law enforcement. Subordinate group members have reported feeling both under-protected and over-policed by law enforcement. The issue of the over-policing of minority groups can be traced back over the course of the past century when minority communities felt that the police used oppressive tactics and operations disproportionately targeted at minorities. Subordinate groups describe under-policing as law enforcement delaying their response to incidents, not doing enough to apprehend the offender, being disinterested and impolite, and making mistakes or handling matters badly. In other words, minority communities increasingly saw themselves as the targets of policing. Because trust and confidence in the police is lost, the minority groups do not turn to the police for assistance when they are subjected to ongoing violence and harassment. In fact, hate crimes in general are significantly underreported.

There are a number of positive activities that the police can undertake to improve their response to hate crimes. While the police cannot directly lessen hate, they can contribute considerably to the establishment of an environment that lessens the chance that hatred will result in interpersonal violence by providing a fair, effective, and open service to all members of their community. If the police can be fair, effective, and open, then it follows that subordinate group members will be more willing to report crimes as well as assist law enforcement efforts. In addition, if police utilize a deliberately broad and inclusive, but specific, definition of hate crime, it would restrict the discretion of individual officers and possibly encourage better recording of hate crimes. Several jurisdictions have responded to the need by requiring hate crime training while police officers are at the law enforcement academy, using specially trained investigators for hate crime, or forming specialist investigative units with officers dedicated to hate crime investigations.

As with other types of crime, the courts main response to hate crime is to mete out punishment. However, since hate crimes include both motivation and illegal behavior, rehabilitation is also necessary. The following methods have been utilized or discussed as ways to work with the hate crime offender: the punishment model, the restorative justice model, counseling or education programs, and civil remedies.

Hate crime offenders can be responded to by simply placing them in prison as punishment. However, few believe that prison punishment alone will be enough to increase the offender’s tolerance of others—and may even increase a hate crime offender’s bias, since most prison situations are quite segregated along racial and ethnic lines. In fact, many prisons are rife with hate group recruitment and membership. Most agree that some form of rehabilitation of the hate crime perpetrator in addition to the punishment is warranted.

The restorative justice model emphasizes the restoration of the victim and community as much as possible. One component of restorative justice includes victim–offender mediation. During mediation, the offender and victim come together; the victim has the opportunity to explain how the offense impacted him or her and ask any questions of the offender, and the offender has the opportunity to provide apologies and explanations. This offers the venue for the victim to speak of his or her experience and allows the offender to understand his or her impact on the victim and to obtain a more realistic picture of the victim (which is helpful because much prejudice against the victim is based on stereotypes and myths of that particular subordinate group). The goal is for the people involved to reach an agreeable reconciliation.

Another approach to rehabilitating hate crime offenders is to provide them with some sort of educational or counseling program. Depending on the offender’s unique circumstances, the rehabilitation could involve several aspects such as diversity education, individual or group treatment of prejudice, mentorship of the offender by a member of the victim’s subordinate group, and visiting relevant museums (e.g., the Holocaust Museum). Because a portion of hate crime offenders have a history of violence, it may be important to not only focus treatment on bias but also to provide anger management or interpersonal effectiveness treatment as a part of the offender’s rehabilitation.

Finally, some states offer civil remedies to the victims of hate crime. For example, the state of Illinois offers victims of hate crimes free attorneys that will sue hate crime offenders for physical and emotional damage (in addition to free attorneys for criminal court). Previous victims of hate crimes have been successful at suing both hate crime offenders as well as organized hate groups to which the offender belonged.

While responding to hate crime involves working or dealing with offenders or victims once a crime has happened, preventing hate crime focuses on making appropriate changes in society that would prevent future violence related to hate and bias. Since it is known that individuals are not born with prejudice, bias, or hate—that these things are learned—it becomes obvious that these harmful attitudes and feelings can be prevented. Thus, educating individuals to value and embrace diversity would work to reduce prejudice and bias. Several anti-hate organizations have developed in response to hate crime in order to track these crimes and offer prevention services.

A. Preventing Hate Crime through Education

Education and training of individuals to prevent future hate crime and decrease prejudice may take several forms, including school curriculum change, training for educators, specific classroom/school experiences and programs, and public awareness campaigns. Researchers, educators, and individuals who work with specific anti-hate groups have suggested curricula, programs, and exercises that have either been demonstrated to reduce prejudice or seem promising to do so.

Research indicates that typically a certain type of interaction is needed to change bias—specifically, individuals who are different from one another working together to complete a goal. For example, Jigsaw Classrooms have been developed and utilized that reduce stereotypes. In the Jigsaw Classrooms, children are placed in diverse small groups that require each child to “teach” the other children part of the lesson that they are required to learn. In order for the children to do well, they have to rely on the others in the group—as each student holds a piece of the “puzzle.” Examining the effectiveness of this technique has indicated it serves to help the children’s willingness to work together, increase friendship between diverse students, and increase subordinate group children’s grades.

An increasingly popular way to reduce hate and bias has been through public awareness campaigns. These campaigns may consist of mass media publicity (e.g., MTV playing The Matthew Shepard Story and listing names of hate crime victims as part of an anti-hate campaign) or specific drives by independent organizations, advocacy groups, or government or law enforcement agencies. These campaigns and drives may provide information and awareness through literature, media programming, advertising, and fund-raising. Research has generally indicated positive outcomes from these types of campaigns.

As there are several hundred organized hate groups, fortunately there are also numerous organized anti-hate groups. These anti-hate organizations range from local and regional to national and international groups. The largest of them will be discussed briefly.

Partners Against Hate (PAH) is an organization funded by the U.S. government that offers education and tools for young people and professionals who work and interact with youth, parents, law enforcement officials, educators, and community leaders. The Partners Against Hate Web site provides numerous links to educational materials, training programs, and tools for individuals interested in reducing bias and hate.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a Jewish group initially founded in 1913 to reduce Jewish stereotypes and prejudice. During the 1960s, the ADL broadened its scope to include civil rights issues. Today, the ADL is one of the United States’ largest civil rights/human relations agencies that fight anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry. The ADL develops materials, programs, and services through over 30 regional and satellite offices throughout the United States and abroad.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was founded in 1971 as a civil rights organization. The SPLC is headquartered in Alabama and monitors organized hate. As the organization was founded by two civil rights attorneys, the SPLC has provided legal counsel in a number of prominent cases against white supremacists and hate group organizations. Since its development, the organization has also become active in educational efforts through publishing resources for educators, parents, and children. The SPLC publishes a semiannual magazine aimed at teachers called Teaching Tolerance.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) was founded in 1973 to promote the civil rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people. This organization tracks antigay and -transgendered violence, advocates for rights, and provides educational activities and information. The NGLTF’s Web site provides information on each state’s legal issues related to the rights of gays and lesbians, information on gay violence and hate crime in general, and links for several informational documents and manuals.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) was founded in 1977 by a rabbi who was a Holocaust survivor and is an international Jewish human rights organization. This anti-hate organization focuses its efforts on education by operating the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, California. The SWC also offers training to educators and law enforcement officials on diversity and hate crime.

There are several other anti-hate organizations and agencies throughout the United States that focus both generally on combating hate and specifically on particular hate problems. For example, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is committed to empowering Arab Americans, defending the rights of Arab Americans, and advocating a balanced Middle East policy. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) works to foster sound public policies, laws, and programs to safeguard the civil rights of Hispanics/Latinos living in the United States and to empower that community to fully participate in U.S. society. All of these organizations, big and small, work to offer knowledge and aid to diverse groups within the United States and to serve communities by providing resources.

Hate crime is defined as an illegal act against a person, institution, or property that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against the victim’s group membership. Although hate crime is a relatively new category of crime, the United States has a long history of biased actions against individuals because of their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and gender. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, the federal government and states have collected data on hate crime occurrences as well as developed specific laws against such crimes. There are differences between the federal and state laws as well as differences among the states. Most differences include varied group coverage in the law. Because of these differences and the underreporting of incidents, the true rates remain unknown.

Research in the last few decades has indicated that African Americans are the most likely victims of hate crime in the United States, followed by people of the Jewish faith and individuals of differing sexual orientation or gender identity. Initial typology study has indicated the most common type of hate crime offender commits hate crime because of thrill/excitement, followed by defensive, retaliatory, and mission reasons. Research has also specified that the most common hate crime perpetrator is a young, white male, who is not associated with an organized hate group. Research also shows that brutality is more likely for this crime because of the group perpetration, victims are typically strangers, and the crime is expressive rather than instrumental in nature.

Law enforcement, the overall criminal justice system, and anti-hate organizations have developed programs and tools to help respond to and prevent hate crime. For example, several police agencies have developed hate crime teams, several jurisdictions require treatment for hate crime perpetrators, and both national and regional anti-hate organizations have developed Web sites to provide communities with information and aid in the prevention of these horrific crimes. It is encouraging to know that as hate organizations have developed over the United States’ history, so too have anti-hate groups that work just as hard in prevention.

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Bibliography:

• Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
• Anti-Defamation League: http://www.adl.org
• Brown, R. (1995). Prejudice: Its social psychology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
• Craig-Henderson, K., & Sloan, L. R. (2003). After the hate: Helping psychologists help victims of racist hate crime. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10(4), 481–490.
• Deane, C., & Fears, D. (2006, March 9). Negative perception of Islam increasing. Washington Post, 1.
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• Gerstenfeld, P. B., & Grant, D. R. (2004). Crimes of hate: Selected readings. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Grattet, R., & Jenness, V. (2001). Examining the boundaries of hate crime law: Disabilities and the “dilemma of difference.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 91, 653–697.
• Grieve, J. (2004). The investigation of hate crimes: Art, science or philosophy? In N. R. J. Hall, N. Abdullah-Kahn, D. Blackbourn, R. Fletcher, & J. Grieve (Eds.), Hate crime. Portsmouth, UK: Institute of Criminal Justice Studies.
• Hall, N. (2005). Hate crime. Devon, UK: Willan.
• Harlow, C. W. (2005, November). National Crime Victimization Survey and Uniform Crime Reporting: Hate crime reported by victims and police (NCJ 209911). Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
• Herek, G. M., Gillis, J. R., Cogan, J. C., & Glunt, E. K. (1997). Hate crime victimization among lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults: Prevalence, psychological correlates, and methodological issues. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12(2), 195–215.
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• Petrosino, C. (1999). Connecting the past to the future: Hate crime in America. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 15(1), 22–47.
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• Torres, S. (1999). Hate crimes against African Americans: The extent of the problem. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 15(1), 48–63.
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