A Typology of the Motives of Hate Crime Offenders

Since the Supreme Court's recent decision in R. A. V. v. St. Paul,(1) striking down on First Amendment grounds a municipal ordinance making it an offense display a symbol which one knows or has reason know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or Congress, state legislatures, and local governments have been considering what do next in the war against crimes. What is true for the nation is also true for New York State and New York City which, if anything, are more likely than other jurisdictions define the world in terms of group, especially racial, issues and interests. The R.A.V. decision provides an opportunity take stock of all recent anti-hate crime initiatives. While this symposium focuses mainly on substantive criminal law and the theory and constitutionality of crime legislation, my focus is on the implementation of a police-made crime reporting policy in New York City. While few cities will have the resources and manpower dedicate an entire unit identifying and investigating crimes, a new federal law mandates nationwide crime data collection.(2) Moreover, calls mark for special attention are likely continue no matter what the fate of post-R.A.V. decisions. The question is whether new motivation-specific criminal laws and police initiatives, of whatever type, can significantly remediate such deeply entrenched and sordid problems as racism, anti-semitism, and homophobia. The New York City Experience In 1980, in response a spate of attacks on synagogues, Police Commissioner Robert McGuire ordered a study of what could be done. The report led directly the establishment of a Bias Crime Unit, consisting of one captain, one sergeant, and ten investigators, that would report directly the Department's highest ranking uniformed officer. (Later the unit expanded eighteen persons.) The unit's original mission was to monitor and investigate acts committed against a person, group, or place because of race, religion or ethnicity. In 1985 the Bias Unit's jurisdiction was extended include motivated by anti-gay and lesbian prejudice, but it has not yet been extended motivated by other prejudices and group hatreds--for example, gender, age, union membership or non-membership, mental or physical handicap, wealth, neighborhood, and so on. Undoubtedly, however, if crime jurisprudence survives the current constitutional attack, it will expand cover against members of some or all of these groups as well. Indeed, it is not inconceivable that some day practically all generic will also constitute hate crimes of one species or another. While the Bias Unit shares responsibility with the NYPD as a whole for solving bias crimes, it is uniquely responsible for deciding whether particular are bias-related, a job fraught with sensitive, even potentially explosive, social and political ramifications. Once new official categories are created, they are likely have real-world political effects. New Yorkers and citizens of other cities may come increasingly assess the state of racial and other inter-group relations in their cities and neighborhoods, and perhaps assess their own sentiments toward members of other groups, according official pronouncements and statistics about crimes. Classifying a particular crime as bias-motivated or non-bias-motivated is no easy matter. It depends upon a subjective judgment about the motivation of an offender or, as in many cases, the motivations of multiple offenders whose personalities and behaviors are likely be complex, confused, and sociopathic. Like many crime statistics and substantive crime statutes, the NYPD's definition of bias crime requires only that the offender's biased motivation be in part responsible for the offense.(3) Would it be implausible say that practically any inter-group crime was in part motivated by bias, especially when multiple offenders were involved? …

This chapter discusses knowledge about offenders through the use of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBIs) National Incident-Based Report System (NIBRS), a relatively underutilised data source. It reconsiders what is known about offender motivation in light of new data and events. The chapter reviews an under-utilised data source to offer some additional insight into the characteristics of hate crime offenders. It reconsiders the original hate crime typology put forward in 1993 and 2002 and suggests ways that the original hate crime offender typology may be evolving to fit changing historical and cultural events. Identifying and reacting to hate-motivated violence remains the most crucial act in combating further acts of hate committed in a community. The chapter seeks to add one's understanding of those who perpetrate hate crimes in an attempt to improve our efforts to detect and deter these acts of violence and bigotry.

This article examines whether crimes motivated by, or which demonstrate, gender ‘hostility’ should be included within the current framework of hate crime legislation in England and Wales. The article uses the example of rape to explore the parallels (both conceptual and evidential) between gender‐motivated violence and other ‘archetypal’ forms of hate crime. It is asserted that where there is clear evidence of gender hostility during the commission of an offence, a defendant should be pursued in lawadditionallyas a hate crime offender. In particular it is argued that by focusing on the hate‐motivation of many sexual violence offenders, the criminal justice system can begin to move away from its current focus on the ‘sexual’ motivations of offenders and begin to more effectively challenge the gendered prejudices that are frequently causal to such crimes.

Hate crimes (or bias crimes) are crimes motivated by an offenders’ personal bias against a particular social group. Modern hate crimes legislation developed out of civil rights protections based on race, religion, and national origin; however, the acts that constitute a hate crime have expanded over time, as have the groups protected by hate crimes legislation. Anti-LGBT hate crimes, in which victims are targeted based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBT people are highly overrepresented as victims of hate crimes given the number of LGBT people in the population, and this is especially true of hate crimes against transgender women. Despite the frequency of these crimes, the legal framework for addressing them varies widely across the United States. Many states do not have specific legislation that addresses anti-LGBT hate crimes, while others have legislation that mandates data collection on those crimes but does not enhance civil or criminal penalties for them, and some offer enhanced civil and/or criminal penalties. Even in states that do have legislation to address these types of hate crimes, some states only address hate crimes based on sexual orientation but not those based on gender identity. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act gives the federal government the authority to prosecute those crimes regardless of jurisdiction; however, this power has been used in a limited capacity. Hate crimes are distinct from other crimes that are not motivated by bias. For example, thrill seeking, retaliation, or the desire to harm or punish members of a particular social group often motivates perpetrators of hate crimes; these motivations often result in hate crimes being more violent than other similar crimes. The difference in the motivation of offenders also has significant consequences for victims, both physically and mentally. Victims of hate crimes are more likely to require medical attention than victims of non-bias crimes. Likewise, victims of hate crimes, and especially anti-LGBT hate crimes, often experience negative psychological outcomes, such as PTSD, depression, or anxiety as a result of being victimized for being a member of an already marginalized social group.

This article presents results of multivariate and multi-level analyses of data on hate crime victimization from 14 Western European nations. Although the ethnic composition of immigrant communities shows considerable variation across the 14 countries, in all countries self-defined immigrants are disproportionately exposed to hate crimes. The level of hate crime prevalence is positively correlated with the size of the immigrant communities. The results of a loglinear analysis of individual risks of being victimized by hate crime show that young age and migrant status are the most important independent risk factors of hate crime victimization at the individual level. Other important risk factors are residence in a capital or other large city, low income and an outgoing lifestyle. These risk factors resemble those of victimization by common contact crimes. This result suggests that, although the motivations of offenders are different, the distribution of hate crime victimization at the individual level can to some extent be interpreted through general victimological theories such as lifestyle-exposure theory. These analyses were replicated with a multi-level analysis including data at the macro level on the characteristics of 229 European regions. In this analysis, known criminogenic factors of contact crimes at the macro level, such as the proportion of young males, low income and low employment, are included in the models, besides the proportion of migrants among the inhabitants of the region. The results confirm the salience of the previously identified independent risk factors at the individual level. At the macro level, the relative size of migrant communities per region stands out as the most important factor explaining variance in hate crime prevalence. No independent relationships were found between the socio-economic or demographic characteristics of European regions and the extent of hate crime victimization. The latter results confirm findings of similar analyses of data from the USA. They suggest that in Western Europe hate crimes are driven by cultural tensions between traditional inhabitants and immigrants (community defense hypothesis), rather than by the strain experienced by the perpetrators (economic threat hypothesis). The unexpected finding that levels of educational attainment of European regions are associated with higher levels of hate crime victimization cannot be easily interpreted with either of the two hypotheses about the causes of hate crime victimization. It is tentatively interpreted as a measurement artifact resulting from heightened sensitivity to various types of hate crime victimization among better-educated minority groups.

For a period of time following the original usage of the term “hate crimes” in the late 1980s, there existed a gap in the literature of criminology and social science generally regarding important factors underlying the motivation of hate crime offenders. Researchers recognized that certain criminal behavior had its basis in hostility toward people who were different in socially significant ways from the perpetrator. Yet little was systematically articulated to connect various hate crimes with relevant sociological and social psychological explanatory variables. As a result, those practitioners who deal with hate crimes on a daily basis—for example, prosecu- tors and law enforcement personnel—were at a loss to identify the distinguishing characteristics of hate-motivated offenses. Recognizing this gap in the literature, my colleague Jack McDevitt and I sought to establish an exhaustive typology of offender motivations and to elucidate the range of factors associated with these motives.

During the last several years, many jurisdictions have enacted laws meant to punish behavior motivated by racial hatred or other forms of bigotry. The actual impact of these laws is probably largely symbolic. These laws, which are often called “hate crime” laws, have a number of problems. Hate crime laws may violate the constitution, but this problem can usually be avoided through careful drafting. More importantly, there are a number of practical and policy problems with hate crime laws; not only are these crimes difficult to identify, but they involve the problematical consideration of the offender's motive. In addition, social scientific theories suggest that the laws may actually increase bigotry and disempower minorities. For these reasons, it is recommended that policy‐makers explore other means of reducing bigotry.

Hate crime research has increased, but there are very few studies examining hate crime offenders. It is, therefore, difficult to determine to what extent those who perpetrate this offence might be different from those who have not committed hate crime. This study is the first to provide an account of the demographics and criminal histories of those serving time in prison for committing a hate crime. It is based on a large complete population of offenders in the UK. Hate crime offenders released from prison were found to have prolific criminal careers, having committed a wide range and large number of different types of offences. When compared with those who committed a general (non-hate) violent offence, violent hate crime offenders were significantly older and were considerably more prolific in their previous offending. Violent hate crime appeared quantitatively, as opposed to qualitatively, different from violent non-hate crime, but this was less clearly true when those who had committed public order hate crime were compared with other public order offenders. Interventions to reduce the later offending of violent hate crime offenders should be based on the effective interventions that exist for violent offenders, but should take into account knowledge about the surprisingly prolific criminal careers of hate crime offenders.

Little research has been conducted to determine the motivations of hate crime offenders. This article builds on an earlier work of J. Levin and McDevitt (1993) in which a typology of offender motivations was first articulated. We reanalyze 169 Boston police case files that were originally studied in order to provide empirical grounding for the typology. In this updated study, characteristics of the three original motives—thrill, defensive, and mission—are examined in relation to a new category: retaliatory motivation. In addition, the article addresses the issue of levels of culpability in explaining the most appropriate sanctions for certain kinds of hate offenders.

Future developments for hate crime thinking: who, what and why?, Neil Chakraborti Part One: Developing More Nuanced Understandings of Hate Crime 1. The more things change - post 9/11 trends in hate crime scholarship, Barbara Perry 2. The victimisation of Goths and the boundaries of hate crime, Jon Garland 3. Future challenges for hate crime policy: lessons from the past, Hannah Mason-Bish 4. Homophobic hate crime in Northern Ireland, Marian Duggan 5. Verbal and textual hostility in context, Nicole Asquith 6. Hate crime offenders, Jack McDevitt, Jack Levin, Jim Nolan and Susan Bennett Part Two: Developing More Nuanced Responses to Hate Crime 7. Law enforcement and hate crime: theoretical perspectives on the complexities of policing 'hatred', Nathan Hall 8. From hate to prevent: community safety and counter-terrorism, Derek McGhee 9. Hate crime victims and hate crime reporting: some impertinent questions, Kris Christmann and Kevin Wong 10. Racial aggravation or aggravating racism: overcoming the disjunction between legal and subjective realities, David Gadd 11. Healing harms and engendering tolerance: the promise of restorative justice for hate crime, Mark Walters and Carolyn Hoyle

Hate crimes have severe consequences for the victims and for all members of the victim's social category. Prison programs must address the criminogenic needs of the participants, especially in this kind of crime, in order to prevent recidivism. This study seeks to understand the role of prejudice and aggression in the execution of hate crimes, in order to design effective interventions for hate crime offenders. Sociodemographic, criminological, and psychosocial variables were assessed in a sample of 33 hate crime offenders sentenced to prison or community service and in a group of 38 non-bias-motivated criminals (n = 71). The individuals convicted of hate crimes have higher reactive and proactive aggression, subtle prejudice, homophobia, and social dominance orientation. The implications of these results for the Penitentiary Administration programs will be discussed.

Research on hate crime has largely been limited to official statistics collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and some independent scholarly research of hate crime victims. Few, however, have studied hate crime offenders. Offender narratives of hate crime participation are the focus of this study. Further, few have studied hate crimes against the Amish and their offenders. This study examines hate crime against the Amish with a particular focus on the bias motivation that generates anti-Amish hate crime. To accomplish this task, non-Amish hate crime offenders were enlisted to share their experiences and stories about anti-Amish hate crime. A total of eight subjects were interviewed; the subjects supplied over 16 hours of audiotaped narrative describing acts of "Claping" they had committed against Old Order Amish. The data were transcribed and an analysis of the interview data revealed that themes emerged from offender narratives within each element of routine activities theory. The data support that the subjects were motivated offenders, the Amish were perceived as suitable targets, and there was a perception that guardians were lacking within the community to discourage anti-Amish hate crime. However, it is important to consider the themes that emerged within each dimension of routine activities when applying the theory to anti-Amish bias crime.

Hate crimes (e.g., anti-Asian and antisemitic) continue to be a problem in the United States. Federal laws protect specific groups (i.e., race, color, national origin, religion, gender/sex, gender identity, disability, and sexual orientation) from victimization of bias-motivated crimes. There is little research investigating how laypeople “know” whether a hate crime has occurred, as well as who they believe are hate crime offenders and victims. The current study explores laypeople's awareness and recognition of hate crimes, offenders, and victims that fit or do not fit their lay theories (e.g., stereotypes). More specifically, the study explores laypeople's (i.e., jurors’) lack of knowledge about federal hate crime legislation, offenders, and victims. The overarching research question is “What are people's lay beliefs about hate crimes, offenders, and victims?” A sample of jury-eligible participants was recruited through Prolific Academic. We conducted semi-structured interviews using quota sampling based on gender (men, women) and race (White, Asian, Black, Hispanic). We conducted a content analysis of the qualitative data. Results demonstrated that participants’ lay beliefs generally aligned with what federal law dictates; however, there were some non-protected groups that laypeople believed could still be victims of hate crimes. Additionally, results can inform researchers and policy makers about laypeople's beliefs about hate crimes, offenders, and victims, which can be applied broadly and to the context of juror decision-making. If laypeople's beliefs about hate crimes, offenders, and victims are inaccurate or do not align with the federal definition of hate crimes, they could subsequently make legally unsound and inaccurate decisions.

Hate crime inflicts a variety of harms on victims, communities, as well as society at large. Scholars have long sought to understand the motivations and conditions behind hate crime offending. Green and his colleagues conducted the classic neighborhood studies examining the conditions that foster hate crime. Using data on hate crime in New York City from 1995 to 2010 from the New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force, the current study replicates and extends Green and colleagues’ neighborhood studies, investigating whether their findings hold true over an extended period of time in New York City as the city underwent major demographic changes. Using a group conflict framework, the current study extends prior work testing hypotheses derived from defended neighborhoods, social disorganization, and strain theories to explain ethnoracial hate crime.

This research investigates variation in hate crime offending against Arabs and Muslims across U.S. counties in the months before and after September 11, 2001. Four questions are of particular interest. First, what were the determinants of anti-Arab and Muslim hate crimes prior to 9/11? Second, in what social contexts were Arabs and Muslims at greatest risk of victimization? Third, to what extent did hate crimes against these groups increase after the terrorist attacks? And last, did the predictors of hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims change appreciably after 9/11? Findings show that hate crimes targeting Arabs and Muslims increased dramatically in the months following 9/11, although the structural determinants and geographic concentration of these crimes remained largely consistent after the attacks. Negative binomial regression results further suggest that counties with larger concentrations of Arabs and Muslims have higher incidents of such hate crimes, which likely reflects the availability of targets for this type of offending. At the same time, the likelihood of victimization for a given Arab or Muslim person is lowest in counties where the percent Arab or percent Muslim is highest, in line with a power-differential perspective on discrimination and intergroup violence. The findings imply that terrorist attacks may indeed incite retaliation and set off a wave of hate crime offending, but the location of these crimes is likely to remain consistent after a galvanizing event.