After the Hate: Helping Psychologists Help Victims of Racist Hate Crime

Research and official statistics alike identify women from racial minorities as a high-risk group for racial hate crime. Still, the construction of women in racial hate crime remains largely unstudied and the current knowledge on racial hate crime against women can at best be described as fragmentary. Therefore, aim of the present study is to explore the constructions of race and gender from the perspective of female victims of racial hate crime. The study draws on intersectional theory and consists of a discourse analysis based on nine interviews with women who have been targets of racial hate crime. The results show that the construction of race in hate crimes targeting women differs distinctively from the construction of race in hate crimes targeting men. The female victims of racial hate crime often find themselves entangled in racial power struggles between men: a power struggle in which men may show their status vis-á-vis out-group men by sexually controlling or abusing women. Thereby, women’s bodies are used as a tool in racial status conflicts between groups of men, as identities, scripts, and stereotypes found primarily within conservatism and right-wing ideology are enacted on the bodies of the victims.

As an object of academic study, racist hate crime is a comparatively new and under-explored issue in Britain. Despite a long history of what we now label as ‘hate crimes’, it was the murder of Stephen Lawrence in London in 1993 and the subsequent public inquiry in 1999 that served as a catalyst for raising the profile of racist hate crime as a social, political, and policing problem deserving of serious attention in its own right. This chapter will explore a number of issues relating to the policing of racist hate crime, both historical and contemporary, and with particular focus on theoretical and practical influences that inevitably affect the police response to the hate crime ‘problem’.

Hate crimes, which stem from prejudiced attitudes, have a distributionally detrimental impact on societal stability. Although inter-group contacts are potentially an effective means for reducing prejudice and subsequently decreasing the number of hate crimes, scholars have recently recognized the possibility of negative contacts that might actually amplify prejudice. As a result, the question of whether intergroup contacts truly possess the ability to effectively decrease hate crime numbers remains inconclusive. In addition, prior contact research primarily relies on laboratory experiments because the establishment of intergroup contacts in a field setting is challenging. Examination of the effectiveness of intergroup contacts hence merits further investigation in a real-world setting. In this article, we propose that ride-hailing services, which naturally connect individuals from different backgrounds, offer an avenue to facilitate intergroup contacts in practice, which could potentially reduce prejudice and the volume of hate crimes. Leveraging the staggered introduction of this technology into counties in the United States, we conducted a series of analyses to empirically evaluate the contact effects in the open field. Our analysis reveals a notable decrease in the number of hate crimes (particularly a 5.75% reduction in racial hate crimes) after the introduction of ride-hailing services. These findings remained consistent across various robustness tests. Additional moderation analysis suggests that the increased interaction between different groups, facilitated by ride-hailing services, is the most likely explanation for the observed decrease in hate crimes. We further conducted an extensive survey involving real ride-hailing drivers and passengers. The results from our survey provide direct evidence that ride-hailing services create natural and constructive environments where positive interactions and mutual understanding can develop among diverse groups of people. This, in turn, helps mitigate prejudice and hate crimes within society, as observed in our analysis. This study not only extends the existing body of literature on contact theory but also sheds light on how modern technologies can play a pivotal role in curtailing hate crime, yielding both theoretical and practical implications.

This article provides a unique criminological examination of the social situation of victims of racist hate crime, specifically focusing on the consequences of victimization. Based on observational and interview data gathered over two and a half years and located at an agency run by victims of racist hate crime for such victims in England, the research project investigated inter alia how victims and their caseworkers defined racist hate crimes and incidents and what meanings they gave those experiences. Ethnographic research revealed how proximate relationships were perceived to generate ‘risk’ for victims and how, in response, they developed a range of behavioural modification strategies, including isolation of themselves and significant others to avoid further hate crime encounters. A comparison is made between Goffman’s ‘inmate’ and that of the racist hate crime victim in his or her home and neighbourhood. Like inmates in total institutions, many who experience racist hate crime are effectively closed to the outside world. In consequence, they undergo processes of ‘loss and mortification’ within the home and neighbourhood context, including ‘role dispossession’, and become victims.

This research note reports on an empirical investigation of the effect of the Internet on racial hate crimes in the United States from the period 2001–2008. We find evidence that, on average, broadband availability increases racial hate crimes. We also document that the Internet’s impact on these hate crimes is not uniform in that the positive effect is stronger in areas with higher levels of racism, which we identify as those with more segregation and a higher proportion of racially charged search terms, but not significant in areas with lower levels of racism. We analyze in depth whether Internet access will enhance hate group operations but find no support for the idea that this mechanism is driving the result. In contrast, we find that online access is increasing the incidence of racial hate crimes executed by lone wolf perpetrators. Several other mechanisms that could be driving the results are described. Overall, our results shed light on one of the many offline societal challenges from increased online access.

Although hundreds of American college students are the victims of bias-motivated verbal and physical assaults every year, little research explores whether there is a systematic pattern to the hate crimes that occur on college campuses. In this article, we study why some campuses experience more racist hate crimes than do others. We explore how campus demographics, tuition increases, and the presence of fraternities influence reported hate crime incidence. Through a statistical analysis of the hate crimes reported to the FBI by 349 colleges, we find that ethnic-/racial-bias hate crimes are more likely to be reported on predominantly White college campuses and those that have a large Greek population. We contribute to theory on hate crime by illustrating some of the social characteristics that make hate crime more likely in certain geographic areas than others.

This engaging and thought-provoking text provides an accessible introduction to the subject of hate crime. In a world where issues of hatred and prejudice are creating complex challenges for society and for governments, this book provides an articulate and insightful overview of how such issues relate to crime and criminal justice. It offers comprehensive coverage, including topics such as: •Racist hate crime •Religiously motivated hate crime •Homophobic crime •Gender and violence •Disablist hate crime The book considers the challenges involved in policing hate crime, as well as exploring the role of the media. Legislative developments are discussed throughout. Chapter summaries, case studies, a glossary, and advice on further reading all help to equip the reader with a clear understanding of this nuanced and controversial subject. Hate Crime is essential reading for students and academics in criminology and criminal justice.

Racial hate crimes against Asian Americans in the USA have recently risen. While many examined the domestic consequences of hate crimes, little is known about their impact on foreign public perception of the country. This study fills this gap by investigating how hate crimes in the USA influence attitudes toward the USA. Conducting a survey experiment in nine Asian countries, we found that exposure to information about hate crime incidents in the USA resulted in a significant increase in unfavourable views of the USA (−10.1pp), decreased confidence in the USA (−6.3pp), and increasingly negative perceptions of American democracy (−6.5pp), American ideas and customs (−11.0pp), and American people (−11.8pp). We also find that legislative actions can mitigate the negative effects of hate crime information. These findings underscore the global significance of addressing hate crimes in the USA for the country’s reputation and soft power.

This chapter outlines the policy and legislative responses to hate crime in the United Kingdom. It focuses on England and Wales, as Scotland and Northern Ireland have independent legislative and judicial procedures, however it should be stated that the devolved legislatures have broadly similar natures and some functions such as foreign policy responses are shared. Whilst there was recognition of hate crime, and particularly racist hate crime, in the UK beforehand, the catalyst for current policy and legislation was the murder of Stephen Lawrence in London in April 1993. In response to the Task Force report, the Government established a work programme, initially called Race for Justice, but latterly known as the Cross-Government Hate Crime Programme. After the programme was established in April 2007, it began work to agree a common definition of hate crime which would provide clarity and also allow system changes to provide more accurate data on the extent of hate crime.

This study examines the influence of the victim's race in reporting hate crimes to the police. Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) concentrated incident-level files (1992-2005) were used to (a) analyze how the victim's race influences the likelihood of reporting and (b) explore differences between reporting racial hate crimes and non-racial hate crimes. Controlling for other demographic and incident characteristics, the results indicate that minority victimizations are less likely to be reported for both racial and nonracial hate crimes; however, the magnitude of this effect was greater for racial hate crimes. Failure to report to the police has serious consequences for the victim and the criminal justice system. Implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Just world research has shown that observers derogate victims more for their misfortunes if the perpetrator is not harshly punished (Lerner in J Personal Soc Psychol 1(4):355–360, 1980). However, few studies have investigated minority group derogation as a just world preservation strategy after instances of intergroup harm-doing. This study is among the first to demonstrate the derogation of both individual victims and of the victim’s minority group experimentally, using the context of a racist hate crime in Australia. In the present experiment, participants (N = 110) read a news article describing a hate crime against an Aboriginal Australian teenager and were informed that the perpetrator was harshly or leniently punished (secure vs. justice threat condition). Our results show that in the justice threat condition, participants not only derogated the individual Aboriginal Australian victim more after his death, they also expressed greater racism toward the victim’s group. An indirect effect of the justice threat condition on modern racism via individual victim derogation was observed, along with moderating effects of individual differences in belief in a just world. These findings provide support for the alarming hypothesis that racist hate crimes are not only the manifestation of a racist society, but may also bolster racial prejudices if leniently treated. The results highlight the important role of political and judicial authorities, whose response or non-response to a hate crime can exacerbate or ameliorate existing prejudices.

This study examines the temporal clustering of hate crimes in Scotland, England and Wales in the wake of the Brexit vote and the 2017 terrorist attacks. Using an interrupted time-series design, we analyzed hate crime data by motivation type and month as provided by area police forces under the Freedom of Information Act. The results revealed a significant increase in crimes based on religious bias in Scotland, England and Wales after the 2017 terrorist attacks. There is also evidence of a significant increase in racial hate crime in the aftermath of the European Union referendum but only in England and Wales. We suggest that these findings underscore the role of political legitimization in predicting hate crimes.

The horrific stories of James Byrd Jr., Matthew Shepard and Stephen Lawrence are forever etched in criminal law. In each of these cases, activists, family members, politicians, academics, the public and media all reacted in their unique way to bring the problem of ‘hate crime’ onto the agenda. There are many other cases that have activated such a public imagination, or what we call ‘figurehead’ cases, yet the factors pertinent to figurehead recognition remain under-explored within hate crime scholarship. Using a case study analysis, three racist and heterosexist hate crime cases are examined in order to assess the individual and collective conditions that facilitated their place on the public agenda. This analysis has important implications for the category of ‘disability’, and highlights several shortcomings that forestall the recognition of ‘disablist hate crime’ publicly, legislatively and judicially. It is argued that the positioning of disability as ‘abject’ has inhibited the operationalization of disablist violence within the hate crime framework, and within criminal justice systems more generally.

Over the last two decades, Northern Ireland has become increasingly more diverse in terms of languages, cultures and religions. The proportion of the usually resident population born outside Northern Ireland rose significantly from 9% in 2001 to 11% in 2011. This change was largely as a result of inward migration by people born in the 12 countries that have joined the European Union (EU) since 2004. These EU accession countries accounted for 2% (35,700) of people usually resident in Northern Ireland on Census Day 2011. With increasing diversity has come increased attention to hate crime in our society. Politicians, academics, statutory, voluntary and community sector organisations and media are increasingly keen to look at the causes and impacts of hate crime, but seldom does this result in action for victims and, in some cases, ethnic minorities are subject to victim-blaming (e.g. see McDonald 2009).

“Racism” as prejudice and discrimination came after races were posited and racism was practiced. Racism occurs in discourse (speech, gesture, symbols) and in action. Hearts-and-minds racism pertains to deliberate individual action. Racist hate crimes are a classic, broadly despised example of racist action, but racist action is more widespread than hate crimes that require immediate racist motives. Institutional racism affects millions and may lack individual intent. Still, its victims, such as poor nonwhite school children and minorities incarcerated for minor crimes or crimes they did not commit, may be harmed as much or more than with racist intent. Implicit racism includes white privilege, micro-aggression, and epistemic injustice.