Hate crimes against the Amish: a qualitative analysis of bias motivation using routine activities theory

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.

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 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.

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

Homeland Violence and Diaspora Insecurity: An Analysis of Israel and American Jewry

Hate crimes increased in 2015, according to a report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The report, 2015 Hate Crime Statistics, found a 6.8 percent increase in hate crimes in the United States in 2015. The 5,859 hate crime incidents reported in 2015 show an increase from 5,479 hate crimes reported in 2014. The demographic that faced the greatest increase in reported hate crimes was Muslims, who saw a 67 percent increase in reported hate crimes from 2014 to 2015. According to Mark Potok from the Southern Poverty Law Center, this is the highest number of hate crimes directed toward Muslims in America since 2001 with the al‐Qaida attacks on New York.

If our knowledge about so called ‘hate crime’ was confined to what we read in the national newspapers or see on the television news then the impression that we would be most likely left with is that hate crime offenders are out-and-out bigots, hate-fuelled individuals who subscribe to racist, homophobic, and other bigoted views who, in exercising their extreme hatred target their victims in premeditated violent attacks. Whilst many such attacks have occurred, the data on incidents, albeit limited, suggests instead that they are commonly committed by ‘ordinary’ people in the context of their ‘everyday’ lives. Considering the everyday circumstances in which incidents occur, this paper argues that by imposing penalty enhancement for ‘hate crime’ the criminal law assumes a significant symbolic role as a cue against transgression on the part of potential offenders.

This article addresses hate crime against African Americans in the United States. The author looks at the data that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has gathered from 1990 to 1996 regarding hate crime against African Americans. Based on Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data on hate crimes, African Americans are most often the victims of race-motivated crimes. The data reflect that from 1992 to 1996 there has been a 52% increase in the number of hate crimes reported against African Americans. Addressed in this article are African American hate crime victimization trends since the passage of the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990, the factors that contribute to hate crimes against African Americans, and some of the recommendations that have been put forth for dealing with this growing problem. The study concludes that there is a climate of increasing intolerance, and a growing acceptability of racial prejudice in the United States.

Hate crimes: v.1: Understanding and defining hate crime; v.2: The consequences of hate crime; v.3: The victims of hate crime; v.4: Hate crime offenders; v.5: Responding to hate crime

Following the passage of the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, hate crime research grew with the ability to use data collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Nevertheless, limitations in the data collection led to a dramatic decline in research by the end of the 20th century. This review provides an overview on the development of the hate crime legislation and data collection in order to address and understand the prevalence of hate crimes in the United States. Despite the limitations found in the national hate crime data collected by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, a rise in the level of hate crimes against immigrants has renewed scholarly interest in identifying the causes and effects of hate crimes. Recent studies have taken a different approach to explain the rise in the level of hate crimes against immigrants given the passage of anti‐immigrant legislation and inflammatory rhetoric against immigrants. By examining the link between hate crimes against immigrant groups and the demographic, economic, and political changes within the local context, researchers can begin to explain the variation in hate crimes and inform future research as well as local policies and practices to prevent these crimes from occurring.

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.

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.

The impression often conveyed by the media about hate crime offenders is that they are hate-fuelled individuals who, in acting out their extremely bigoted views, target their victims in premeditated violent attacks. Scholarly research on the perpetrators of hate crimes has begun to provide a more nuanced picture. However, the preoccupation of researchers with convicted offenders neglects the vast majority of hate crime offenders that do not come into contact with the criminal justice system. This book widens understanding of hate crime by demonstrating that many offenders are ordinary people who offend in the context of their everyday lives. The book takes a victim-centred approach to explore and analyse hate crime as a social problem, providing an empirically informed and scholarly perspective. The book draws out the connections between the individual agency of offenders and the background structural context for their actions. It adds a new dimension to the debate about criminalising hate in light of concerns about the rise of punitive and expressive justice, scrutinising the balance struck by hate crime laws between the rights of offenders and the rights of victims.

The impression often conveyed by the media about hate crime offenders is that they are hate-fuelled individuals who, in acting out their extremely bigoted views, target their victims in premeditated violent attacks. Scholarly research on the perpetrators of hate crimes has begun to provide a more nuanced picture. However, the preoccupation of researchers with convicted offenders neglects the vast majority of hate crime offenders that do not come into contact with the criminal justice system. This book widens understanding of hate crime by demonstrating that many offenders are ordinary people who offend in the context of their everyday lives. The book takes a victim-centred approach to explore and analyse hate crime as a social problem, providing an empirically informed and scholarly perspective. The book draws out the connections between the individual agency of offenders and the background structural context for their actions. It adds a new dimension to the debate about criminalising hate in light of concerns about the rise of punitive and expressive justice, scrutinising the balance struck by hate crime laws between the rights of offenders and the rights of victims.