Hate Crime in the Wake of Terror Attacks

Abstract

This article asks what happened to racially motivated hate crimes in the wake of the 7/7 terror attack that hit London in July 2005 and the 9/11 terror attack that hit the United States in September 2001. There is anecdotal and descriptive evidence of an increase in bias-motivated crimes since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, but little quantitative research on the issue. This study offers empirical evidence on the effects of 7/7 and 9/11 on hate crime using rich data from four police force areas in England with sizable Asian/Arab populations. We find significant increases in hate crimes against Asians and Arabs that occurred almost immediately in the wake of both terror attacks, which subsequently decayed, but remained at higher than pre-attack levels a year later. We argue that this demonstrates a significant link between terror attacks and subsequent increases in hate crime and hypothesize that attitudinal changes resulting from media framing and coverage may act as a conduit linking terror attacks and hate crimes.