Underreporting Rate in Hate Crimes in Spain: Why is so High?

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.

Hate crime is a problem in many countries around the world. Scholars define hate crimes as unlawful conduct directed at different target groups, which can include violent acts, property damage, harassment, and trespassing (see Hate crime: An emergent research agenda. Annual Review of Sociology 27.1 [2001]: 479–504). Hate crime perpetrators target their victim’s race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, or disability, but also a variety of other characteristics. Several social movements (e.g., the civil rights movement, women’s movement, and LGBT movement) laid the foundation for anti-violence movements and placed the hate crime discourse on the political and legislative agenda. One way to better understand hate crime is to explore how governments in different parts of the world address the issue of crimes motivated by hate or prejudice. Targeted laws and policies transformed hate violence from ordinary to extraordinary crime (see Hate crime policy in western Europe: Responding to racist violence in Britain, Germany, and France. American Behavioral Scientist 51.2 [2007]: 149–165). Different countries implemented hate crime legislation in order to condemn crime committed due to prejudice or bias against an individual or group of people, introducing such legislation during different periods in time. The United States emerged as the leader of hate crime policy approaches, implementing legal responses to prejudice and bias in the early 20th century. The United States was also the first country to circulate the term “hate crime” during the 1980s (see Hate crime: An emergent research agenda. Annual Review of Sociology 27.1 [2001]: 479–504). Europe and the Asia-Pacific region followed suit in implementing their own responses to hate crime. The diversity of hate crime legislation in different countries makes it difficult to combine the legislative contexts under a common framework. A controversial debate exists around the need for a separate set of hate crime legislation. Scholars dispute the seriousness of the hate crime offense, the possibilities of proving motivational aspects of the hate crime, criminalizing hate, and introducing more severe punishments. They also debate the utilization of the civil versus the criminal code, the inclusion of different protected categories under hate crime legislation, the symbolic character of hate crime, and the social and political impact of hate crime legislation. This bibliography reviews key resources on hate crime legislation, including its historical context, its globalization, and the socio-criminological debate around hate crime legislation.

The purpose of this document is to present the research plan for our doctoral Thesis. This project seeks to analyse messages published on the social network Twitter, to identify how hate speech spreads against the LGBT community on Spanish social media between 2018–2022 and its relationship with hate crimes. We hypothesize that the spread of hate speech online and the growth of anti-LGBT hate crimes may be correlated. To carry out this research, we will do a content analysis of the data. The Twitter API will be used to download the messages posted on the social network. In addition, we will collect primary data from official sources and other alternative sources for monitoring hate crimes against the LGBT community. Subsequently, we will cross the data from social networks and the monitoring data of hate crimes to identify if we can infer correlations between them over the 5 years that they were analysed. The Python programming languages will be used for data collection and analysis aspects and R. for statistical analysis. The results are expected to contribute to the development of a proposal, which is the prevention of prejudicial attitudes through actions that promote respect and awareness of LGBT people.

Much of the academic, practitioner and voluntary sector interest in victims of hate crime have focused upon the impacts of hate crime and the practical and emotional support needs and services for victims. Our own work has been somewhat divergent from this. We were commissioned to identify how hate crime reporting could be improved in a northern town, and made inclusive across different equality groups. We undertook a small scale study that examined individual decision making by hate crime victims in whether or not to report incidents, and how the available reporting arrangements and associated publicity materials affected these decisions (Wong & Christmann, 2008). Somewhat to our surprise, what appeared to be a critical issue in terms of whether or not hate crime policies were likely to succeed was also a much under researched area. Whilst our own research findings cannot be generalised beyond the study site, it did allow us to test out and consider more thoroughly some of the assumptions implicit in policy developments around hate crime reporting, specifically the policy goal of full reporting. We want to reflect back on these findings and the broader research literature to pose some questions on the adequacy and utility of the current reporting agencies approaches and the general policy direction to hate crime victims. We believe this has merit because the statutory criminal justice agencies and the voluntary sector are grappling with the challenges of adopting hate crime in its broadest sense, and providing a responsive, effective and victim centred service across markedly different vulnerable groups. Pertinent questions can be asked about what the current policies on hate crime can be expected to achieve given the nature of victim decision making on the critical issue of whether to report their victimisation. We will draw out some implications that the legacy of the Lawrence Inquiry has had for strategic thinking, policy making and make some tentative suggestions on how these might be improved. We argue something that may be considered heresy among hate crime victimloogy circles and victim campaigning groups; that the current policy message concerning victim reporting does not reflect reality, and risks being discredited. What is required, some 10 years post Lawrence is more nuanced responses and ones which acknowledge: the distance travelled by criminal justice agencies in the intervening years; that the majority of hate crime is manifested as single incidents of harassment (which may not necessarily constitute crimes); and the unlikelihood of full reporting by the public, which realistically fits where the public are in terms of their expectations. In doing so we do not pretend to have any authoritative answers to these issues, but believe the questions are worth posing to prompt a debate between efficacy of response versus a largely unchallenged view of hate crime victimology.

This article will focus on the role emotions play in individuals in violent urban gangs committing hate crimes. A definition of urban gang will be provided and it will differ from the concept of urban tribe. Places where these individuals perform and act will also be explained in detail. This article will also explain signs that serve as reference within the Spanish legal context to determine whether there has been a hate crime. Questions such as “why are hate crimes not reported?” will be answered. The description of urban gangs used here does exist in our society nowadays. The use of emotions in individuals who belong to urban gangs that commit violent hate crimes will be analysed. Features found in violent urban gangs such as Skinhead will also be explained. There are two different branches in Skinhead gangs: Neonazis and Antifascists. Lastly and upon the implementation of the Framework Decision 913/2008/JAI to the Spanish penal code, an analysis on the current legislation in Spain to protect vulnerable groups as well as victims of hate crimes will be offered in detail.

Concern for immigrants as victims of crime or immigrant victims' access to justice has been scarce. The lack of research on the victimization of immigrants is undoubtedly related to the difficulty of obtaining valid data on the immigration status of crime victims. Another reason for the lack of research on immigrants as victims is what researchers working within the social constructionist tradition would describe as the process of defining victim categories and of 'making claims' (Spector and Kitsuse, 1977) on behalf of those categories. Victim-activists have been remarkably successful at placing a variety of victim categories and victim issues on the public agenda including elder abuse, hate crime, child abuse, intimate partner violence, and crime against the elderly. The fact that they have not cast 'immigrants' in the role of star victim' does not necessarily mean that concern about immigrant victimization does not exist at all. Rather, it is because certain immigrant troubles have been subsumed under politically hotter topics, such as 'hate crime' and 'domestic violence'. The articles included here reflect the fragmented and thin state of our knowledge about immigrants as victims of crime. Each of the articles makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the various dimensions of this increasingly significant problem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)

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.

This article explores how bias crimes differ from parallel crimes and why this distinction makes a crucial difference in our criminal law. Bias crimes differ from parallel crimes as a matter of both the resulting harm and the mental state of the offender. The nature of the injury sustained by the immediate victim of a bias crime exceeds the harm caused by a parallel crime. Moreover, bias crimes inflict a palpable harm on the broader target community of the crime as well as on society at large. The distinction between bias crimes and parallel crimes also concerns the perpetrator's state of mind and, specifically, his bias motivation toward his victim. Bias motivation is an essential element of criminal liability and the greater level of harm caused warrants their enhanced punishment. The punishment of an individual offender for the commission of a bias crime, however, is warranted by the state of mind with which he acts. Part I of this article discusses the differences between bias crimes and parallel crimes and explores the distinctiveness of perpetrators and victims of bias crimes along with the impact of bias crimes beyond that on the immediate victim. After establishing a typology of positive bias crime law, the author discusses the outward manifestations of these crimes. Part II demonstrates that bias crimes ought to be punished more severely than parallel crimes. Part III considers the aspects of bias crimes that are relevant in the punishment of an individual offender. Whereas the harm caused by bias crimes generally justifies the enhanced punishment of these crimes, the resulting harm to a particular victim does not, in and of itself, warrant the enhanced punishment of the perpetrator. Bias motivation of the perpetrator, and not necessarily the resulting harm to the victim, is the critical factor in determining an individual's guilt for a bias crime. The author concludes that the discriminatory selection model of bias crimes is an insufficient theory of bias crime, whereas the racial animus model offers a far richer theory. Discriminatory selection of a victim may often provide important evidence of racial animus, and in some instances even fully persuasive evidence. But selection ought to play the role of proof for animus and not the greater role of element for guilt.

Reviewed by: Tough on Hate?: The Cultural Politics of Hate Crimes by Clara S. Lewis Rebecca Barrett-Fox TOUGH ON HATE?: The Cultural Politics of Hate Crimes. By Clara S. Lewis. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 2013. Although gay college student Matthew Shepard’s murder was not legally deemed a hate crime, Shepard has become the paradigmatic hate crime victim, his image so often invoked that the federal legislation against hate crimes is named after him and lynching victim James Byrd, Jr. Though their murders raised national consciousness about bias-based violence, Clara S. Lewis argues in Tough on Hate?: The Cultural Politics of Hate Crimes, the media, politicians, and the general public have used their images in ways that paradoxically decry “hate” while undermining “our collective sense of culpability” (25) so that we cannot act on the ongoing structural oppression that incubates hate. Lewis posits that our well-meaning narratives about hate crimes demand a post-difference citizenship, “whereby members of historically marginalized groups and their allies are given access to public support by condoning post-difference ideology” (91). Victims of hate crimes (or their family members) must deny their difference, [End Page 142] which otherwise challenges ideas about national unity. Victims of anti–Arab/Muslim hate crimes must stress their love of America and Islam’s non-threatening nature. Racial minorities must be “race blind,” relegating race-based violence to the Civil Rights era (except in the exceptional case at hand). Victims of homophobic violence cannot be sexual but, like Shepard, childlike and from “spectacularly normal” backgrounds (96). Yet victims are selected precisely because they are not normative; their religious, ethnic, racial, and sexual identities place them outside of the norm. In a post-difference world, these identities don’t matter—except that they do, sometimes to the point of death. By erasing the very difference that inspired the crime, the public again victimizes with its “overwhelming desire to prove that we, the people within the community where the crime occurred, are better than the crime” (3). Hate crime narratives focus on the normality of the victim. (How tempting it is, as Matthew Shepard’s mother Judy speaks, to think, “That could have been my son!” Except that it wouldn’t ever be your son unless your son is gay). They also place the perpetrators outside of society, as “loners” on the “fringe.” The public’s desire to depict perpetrators, who are actually “disturbingly conformist” (85), as abnormal is motivated by the same need to view such crimes as abnormal rather than as “an expression of extended histories of often state-sponsored violence against minority groups and of broader contemporary social forces” (60). If victims really are different and perpetrators really are conformists, we could no longer see these crimes as unthinkable but as violent, predictable consequences of oppression. Lewis skillfully analyzes the rhetoric around hate crimes, examining news coverage, political hearings, legislation, and documentary films, and deploying theories from diverse disciplines in a way that will engage American Studies scholars. Unfortunately, it draws from a limited number of high-profile crimes—for example, no anti-Semitic crimes are examined. That said, it is easy enough for readers to imagine how the rich critiques that Lewis articulates here could be applied to other hate crimes and, more importantly, to our responses to them. Rebecca Barrett-Fox Arkansas State University Copyright © 2014 Mid-America American Studies Association

The rights of victims of hate speech and hate crimes are part of the rights in the system of support for victims and witnesses of criminal acts according to domestic legislation and international and European standards. Directive 2012/29/EU foresees an obligation for member states (and candidates) to take measures to establish a protection system. Effective protection implies not only a normative framework but also real protection. The specifics of hate speech and hate crimes also conditioned the adoption of Directive CM/Rec (2022) 16, which foresees measures to combat hate speech. Some expressions of hate speech require a criminal law response, including obligations of a preventive nature on the part of public authorities. That is why encouraging individuals and groups to report hate speech and hate crimes and providing protection is part of an evolving legal culture. Victims should also be supported by the media, which in modern society often has a decisive role, through compliance with legal regulations and reporting in accordance with the rules of the profession. Social networks are an indispensable element in the policy of preventing and fighting against hate speech and hate crimes, and their role is becoming increasingly important.

Hate crimes are criminal acts motivated by the victim's perceived group affiliation. Most US states and many countries have enacted hate‐crime laws within the past few decades, but these laws often do not include offenses committed against members of the LGBTQ community, even though members of this community are disproportionately likely to suffer from threats and violence. Furthermore, hate crimes against LGBTQ people are rarely reported and even more rarely result in convictions. But victims of these crimes may suffer more ill effects than victims of other crimes, and victimization may contribute to psychological harms.

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.

Globally, there has been a trend in rising levels of hate crime that scholars have argued is reflective of significant social problems within society. Research into hate crime has typically focused on the police and their subsequent response to this crime type, with many findings reporting that the police are racist, homophobic and Islamophobic, to name but a few. However, existing research seldom captures the insights and experiences of sworn police officers, as much of the data is gathered from third parties. This paper presents the empirical findings from a Delphi study conducted with one police force in Australia, sampling sworn New South Wales (NSW) police officers between October 2020 and October 2021. The findings focus on four overarching areas: defining hate crime, perpetrators of hate crime, victims of hate crime, and responses to hate crime. These themes capture the perspectives of NSW police officers in relation to operational and organisational practice in respect of hate crime. Drawing on a Delphi method, the research outlines police perceptions of the nature of hate crime, as well as capturing how hate crime can be effectively reported, recorded, and responded to. Conclusions and implications are considered. These include the requirement for a clearer definition and targeted education strategies aimed at improving knowledge and understanding relating to hate crime. Future directions include the development of a standardised approach to reporting, recording, and responding to hate crime.

Regardless of place and time, hatred exists in society. It is easy to find clear examples of act that would be labeled hate or hate crime today. However, it is not simple a crime in which the offender hate s the victim. In fact, most crimes involving hatred crime between th e parties would not fall under the legal definition of hate crime. It is need that hate crime is more considered as serious crime rat her than general crimes because the victim of the hate crime is not only to individuals but also to groups and society as a whole. To prevent crime, I think it is necessary to consider ways to crimi nalize hate crime and to impose aggravated punishment according t o the nature of hate crime law. It is necessary to consider revising t he current law to allow national agencies to conduct hate crime stat istics surveys to analyze the damage. Also, I think it is necessary to consider policy to order the offender's education program to preven t hate crimes and reduce repeat offenses. However, if hate crime le gislation is practically difficult, it is necessary to add hate crime mo tivation to the sentencing standards of the sentencing committee.

This study investigated how racial prejudice influences White college students' perceptions of hate crime. We also examined the moderating effects of the race of the victim of hate crimes and the absence of hate crime laws. Our sample included 581 White students in a predominantly White university located in a state that does not have a hate crime law. The study was set up in a 2 (race of the victim and the perpetrator) × 3 (level of assault) factorial design. Participants rated their perceptions of three scenarios (i.e., non-racially biased simple assault, racially biased simple assault, and racially biased aggravated assault). The dependent variables were perceptions of hate crime and willingness to report. The key independent variable was participants' level of racial prejudice. The moderators included race of the victim in each scenario and whether participants' state of origin has a hate crime law. Results suggest that higher levels of modern racism were associated with lower perceptions of hate crime and lower willingness to report racially biased simple and aggravated hate crime. When the victim was White, participants with higher levels of racial prejudice were more likely to perceive a hate crime and more willing to report it. The opposite was true when the victim was Black. The absence of state hate crime laws and race of victim were significant moderators. Our study suggests that racial prejudice is associated with lower perceptions of hate crime and willingness to report. Furthermore, the moderating effect of the race of victims provides insights on how racial prejudice can lead to a differential perception of hate crime, depending on whether one's racial in-group is targeted. Our findings also highlight the importance of having state-level hate crime laws to mitigate the linkage between modern racism and perceptions of hate crime.