A Pathfinder on Bias Crimes and the Fight Against Hate Groups

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Isn’t Every Crime a Hate Crime? The Case for Hate Crime Laws

Mapping crime – Hate crimes and hate groups in the USA: A spatial analysis with gridded data

Hate groups and hate crime

This paper is the first to investigate the relationship between hate groups and hate crime empirically. We do so using panel data for the U.S. states between 2002 and 2008. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find little evidence that hate groups are associated with hate crime in the United States. We find somewhat stronger evidence that economic hardship may be related to hate crime. However, evidence for the potential importance of economic factors remains weak. Further, we find that demographic variables aren’t significantly related to hate crime in the United States. Our results leave the question of what factors may drive hate crime in America unresolved. But they cast doubt on the popular perception that hate groups are among them.

The relationship between hate group activity and hate crime is theoretically ambiguous. Hate groups may incite criminal behavior in support of their beliefs. On the other hand, hate groups may reduce hate crime by serving as a forum for members to verbally vent their frustrations or as protection from future biased violence. I find that the presence of an active white supremacist hate group chapter is associated with an 18.7 percent higher hate crime rate. White supremacist groups are not associated with the level of anti-white hate crimes committed by non-whites, nor do they form in expectation of future hate crimes by non-whites.

This paper presents a simple theoretical model to analyze the relationship between hate groups and hate crimes. This paper focuses on two important roles of hate groups; as providers of membership benefits for group members and as a coordination device for leadership. This paper shows that this interaction implies the possibility of multiple equilibria of the crime rate. This result explains why hate crimes and extreme criminal activities vary across communities and over time, and why a social shock such as 9/11 resulted in a rapid increase of hate crimes. Moreover, if hate groups work as coordination devices, the existence of hate groups may increase hate crimes. This result supports recent empirical results analyzing relationships between hate groups and hate crimes.

The rise in race-based hate crimes and groups should not only be examined as an individual- or group-level issue but as indicators that reflect state-level norms of hate and degradation toward racial minority groups. Specifically, for racial minority individuals residing in states that yield higher rates of hate crimes and groups, this may reflect a greater hate culture, and the distress associated with racism may be exacerbated, compared to those residing in states with less of a hate culture (e.g., lower numbers of hate crimes and groups). Thus, to test these assertions, we examined whether state-level indicators of race-based hate crimes and groups would moderate the relationship between perceived racism (offline and online) and stress among racial minority individuals. Using data from 935 racial minority adults across 43 states, a multilevel analysis was conducted with online and offline racism predicting distress at level 1, and the total number of hate crimes and groups moderating this relationship at level 2 (state-level). Between hate crimes and groups, only hate groups was a significant indicator moderating this link. In states with a low number of hate groups, the link between offline racism and stress was not significant while this link was significant in states with a high number of hate groups. Online racism was significantly associated with stress, but this link was not moderated by any of the hate indicators. The findings suggest that the presence and activity of hate groups may be a significant contextual factor in understanding the salience of racial discrimination. Implications for research are discussed.

Many hate crimes are not reported and even fewer hate crimes result in an arrest. This study investigates patterns of victim reporting and arrest for hate crimes in two parts. First, using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, we find that, controlling for offense severity, hate crimes are less likely than non-bias crimes to be reported to the police and that the police are less likely to take further action for hate crimes, compared to non-hate crimes. Second, we use data from the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and the National Incident-Based Reporting System to compare differences between types of hate crimes in the likelihood of crime clearance. We find that those hate crimes most likely to result in arrest are those that fit the profile of a “stereotypical” hate crime: violent incidents, incidents committed by hate groups, and incidents involving white offenders and black victims.

Chapter 6 - Securitization of migration and hate crimes toward immigrants and refugees

This chapter analyses recent theoretical and empirical contributions that have emerged in the opening decade of the twenty-first century. The post-9/11 era has seen dramatic shifts in how one's conceptualise and responds hate crime, although many areas of enquiry remain underdeveloped. The chapter explains an extensive online search of journals and texts addressing hate crime. It identifies four broad categories dominating the literature: making sense of hate crime; 'categories' of victimisation; hate groups; and responding to hate crime. The chapter discusses hate crime literature has tended to be very broad and non-specific in its focus. That is, little scholarship devotes attention to specific categories of victims. The chapter also explains a renewed emphasis on research focusing on the distinct or even comparative experiences of narrowly defined communities. It argues several areas in which there is great scope for development, beginning with consideration of the broader impacts of hate crime.

List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction:The Violence of Hatred Chapter 1 - Defining and Measuring Hate Crime Chapter 2 - Accounting for Hate Crime:Doing Difference Chapter 3 - Defending the Color Line:Race, Difference, and Hate Crime Chapter 4 - Doing Gender and Doing Gender Inappropriately:Violence against Women, Gay Men, and Lesbians Chapter 5 - Beyond Black and White:Minority-on Minority Violence Chapter 6 - Hate Groups and Ideologies of Power Chapter 7 - Permission to Hate:Ethnoviolence and the State Chapter 8 - Conclusion:Doing Difference Differently Appendices Bibliography Index

ObjectiveRecent events (e.g., Brexit) have highlighted how globalization may foster hostility toward out‐groups in developed democracies. Is trade competition systematically related to hate in the United States?MethodsI conduct a county‐level statistical analysis using data from the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, the FBI's Hate Crime Statistics database, and the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate group map over the period of 2003–2017.ResultsCounties with more trade‐related layoffs tend to have more hate groups, though not hate crimes, even after accounting for changes in unemployment rates. The relationship between trade layoffs and hate groups is strongest in counties that have recently experienced larger decreases in the share of the white population.ConclusionsAlthough existing studies on diffuse economic vulnerability and hate find a weak connection between economic factors and hate, trade layoffs can explain some variation in local hate group activity.

Hate crimes are offenses committed against an individual or an individual's property because of an offender's bias toward the individual's actual or perceived characteristic (e.g., the individual's race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.). Hate crime laws exist to protect people who have been targeted solely because of their membership within a legally protected category; these categories generally include groups that have been historically oppressed within the larger society. The use of specific hate crime laws varies around the world, as do the arguments for and against the development and implementation of such laws. Organized hate groups are often perceived to be the perpetrators of hate crimes, yet research indicates that typical offenders are more likely to be labeled as thrill seekers and not necessarily members of a formal hate group.

This paper uses conceptual economics to analyze the nationwide demand for hatred nurtured by political divisiveness and conflicts in the United States. The study asserts that politicians from the Democratic and Republican Parties are the prime suppliers of hatred that hate groups willfully consume to reveal their preference for overt racial-gender hatred and that the hate crime laws or the legal penalties of hate crimes may have altered the dynamics of hatred and hate crimes in both directions in the United States. In the current political environment, the consensus among political pundits and legal scholars is that the 45th President of the United States could be considered as one of the largest suppliers of conspiracy theories and disinformation used to nurture hate-creating stories and false narratives that many hate groups consumed nationwide thus their revealed preference for overt hatred and hate crimes. The aggregate demand for hatred depends on the legal penalty paid for hatred and the continuous hatred signals received from political leaders such as the 45th POTUS.

He was 16 years old, a short youth at 5 foot 3 inches, guilty of no offense except his membership in a minority group. Jordan Gruver, although of Panamanian Indian descent, was presumed to be an illegal Hispanic immigrant because of his skin color. Last summer, while he was enjoying a fair in Kentucky, two members of the Ku Klux Klan savagely beat, kicked, and spit on him. The beating was so severe that he sustained multiple fractures, including his jaw, ribs, and one arm. I learned about him from an article in “USA Today” (Parker, 2007). He was another victim of another vicious hate crime. Another piece of evidence that groups such as the Ku Klux Klan remain active—although they seem to be targeting Hispanic immigrants now, rather than African Americans, Jews, Catholics, or gays. Because of the diligent monitoring of hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, we know that there are 165 active Ku Klux Klan groups in the United States, as well as neo-Nazi and racist skinhead groups—and dozens of others, with names like Neo-Confederates and White Nationalists (see www.tolerance.org). Some hate groups have misleading names, such as Christian Identity (which asserts that Jews were spawned by Satan and non-whites have no souls). In total, there are 844 active hate groups, often choosing egregious violence to advance their agenda. When reading of an abhorrent crime such as that perpetrated on young Jordan Gruver, I always wonder what action I could take (other than contributing money to the work of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which I already do). Perhaps you wonder, too. Here are some ideas from the Center: • Speak up when you hear racial slurs • Cross social boundaries to interact with people who are different from you • Encourage local police to label hate crimes as such • Complain to media when they reinforce stereotypes • Look inside yourself for hidden biases (take a test at www. hiddenbias.org)