Hate Crime Victimization Research Articles

Seeking Help After Hate: Informal Help-Seeking Among Bias and Non-Bias Crime Victims

Violent crime victims often do not report their victimization to the police. While still infrequent, victims may instead (or also) contact non-police (i.e., informal) outlets like counselors, victim service providers, or friends and family. However, it is unclear if the decisions to seek police and/or non-police (“informal”) help differ among hate and non-hate crime victims. Given existing evidence that hate crime victims are more likely to experience greater psychological distress than other victims, it is important to understand how people targeted because of their identities request assistance to mitigate these unique consequences. Using the first wave of the Longitudinal Hate Crime Victimization Survey – Pilot (LHCVS-P), this study examines variation in (1) help-seeking among hate and non-hate crime victims and (2) reasons for reporting or not reporting to the police in tandem with other help-seeking decisions. Implications for improving connections to victim support resources to address unique post-victimization needs are discussed.

A randomised control trial testing the impact of police reassurance contact on hate crime victim withdrawal

Hate crime has an extremely detrimental impact on victims and minority communities. Despite this, the policing response is oft criticised and investigations are characterised by high levels of victim withdrawal. Consequently, offenders are rarely prosecuted. This exposes victims to elevated risk of repeat victimisation and undermines trust in communities with historically limited confidence in the police service. This study reports on a randomised control trial testing whether Secondary Reassurance Contact (SRC), a follow up from a neighbourhood police officer not connected with the investigation, can reduce victim withdrawal of support for a prosecution (attrition) in hate crime investigations. Findings indicate that SRC results in a 12–15% reduction in victim withdrawal. The practical implications are considerable and if scaled nationally SRC may result in tens-of-thousands fewer victims withdrawing support for hate crime investigations each year. SRC therefore offers police decision-makers a tangible and deliverable option to improve hate crime outcomes and to bolster confidence amongst minority communities.

Reducing Hate Crimes: The Role of Racial Contexts and Minority Representation in U.S. State Protective Services

This study examines how minority representation in state protective services agencies impacts hate crimes, with a focus on the influence of racial contexts. It explores the racial dynamics of representation effects by examining both minority and non-minority police officers and citizens, including potential perpetrators and victims across various minority groups. Using two datasets over 15 years (2005–2019), we analyze how minority representation influences disparities among hate crime victims and offenders as well as victims’ identification of such crimes. Our findings support the positive impact of minority representation in law enforcement but suggest that the benefits are not evenly distributed across minority groups and are contingent on the racial makeup of their communities. Black and Asian officer representation significantly reduces victim disparities within their respective groups, while Hispanic representation shows limited effects. Black representation decreases offender disparities in predominantly white communities but does not increase the likelihood of victims identifying hate crimes.

Victims of religious hate crime: Victimisation of Muslims, Jews and Hindus compared

The surge in Hate Crime within the United Kingdom has disproportionately impacted religious communities, particularly Muslims, Jews and Hindus. This article provides a comprehensive exploration of hate crimes targeting these three religious groups in the United Kingdom. Through qualitative interviews with victims, the study aims to analyse their immediate response following the victimisation. Drawing insights from 30 individual interviews and three focus groups, the research uniquely combines three distinct religious groups for comparative analysis, revealing both commonalities and differences in their victimisation experiences. Findings highlight the pervasive nature of victimisation, emphasising community visibility and perceived safety. Notably, collective responsibility is evident among Muslim and Jewish participants. This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of challenges faced by victims, emphasising the need for robust law enforcement measures.

Culprits or Victims? Social Media Use, Mediated Ethnic Blame, and Asian American Mental Health During COVID-19

ABSTRACT The present study aims to understand whether and how social media use negatively affected Asian Americans’ mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. We build on previous research on media framing, stigma, and stereotyping to understand whether social media messages about Asians as culprits to blame for the pandemic, direct experiences of racism, or media coverage of victims of anti-Asian hate crimes led to mental health outcomes for this racial group. We use an online survey of Asian American participants (N = 527) conducted in 2020 to test the role of (a) mediated ethnic blame (MEB), (b) direct stigma, and (c) indirect stigma in explaining the relationship between social media use and mental health among Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results demonstrate that mediated ethnic blame, but not direct or indirect stigma experiences, is associated with Asian Americans’ mental health. Implications for media framing, health communication, and journalism are discussed.

‘I felt . . . caged’: Victims of hate crime and their negotiation of space

This article considers the modes by which hate crime shapes targeted groups’ engagement with public space. It breaks new ground by drawing on spatial concepts and embodiment theory, to consider the geographic dimensions of hate crime. The ways in which targeted groups negotiate, restrict and curtail their movements, and attempt to conceal their targeted identities, in public are detailed. We argue victims experience a profound sense of dislocation from their local communities. This is explored by focussing on the spatial consequences of hate crime for victims, both at the material level, through the restriction of their physical movement, and also somatically, through feelings of restriction inculcated into victims’ affective being. Drawing on inductive qualitative fieldwork conducted in Ireland, we consider some of the particularities of the Irish case while also advocating for a wider understanding of the link between space and hate crime.

‘My trust in strangers has disappeared completely’: How hate crime, perceived risk, and the concealment of sexual orientation affect fear of crime among Swedish LGBTQ students

Previous research has established correlations between anti-LGBTQ hate crime, fear of crime, perceived victimization risk, and the concealment of sexual orientation. Aside from correlations, the relationships between these variables remain poorly understood. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to explore the relationships between anti-LGBTQ hate crime, perceived risk, and the concealment of sexual orientation in relation to fear of crime. Based on previous research and theory, the authors hypothesize (1) that experiences of hate crime victimization increase fear of crime, perceived victimization risk, and the concealment of sexual orientation; (2) that high levels of perceived risk result in high fear of crime and a more prevalent concealment of orientation; and (3) that the concealment of sexual orientation results in lower fear of crime. The sample consists of LGBTQ students enrolled at a Swedish university. The study uses a mixed method approach, combining survey data ( N = 353) and interview data ( N = 10). The data are assessed using path analysis and thematic analysis. The path analysis supported the authors’ hypothesis regarding experiences of anti-LGBT hate crime, perceived risk, and fear of crime. The qualitative analysis showed that victims of hate crimes had a reduced ability to process negative emotions because they experienced other traumatic life events parallel to the victimization. Similarly, feelings of being reduced to a negative stereotype resulted in higher levels of both fear of crime and perceived risk. Finally, the path analysis rejected the hypothesis that the concealment of sexual orientation results in lower fear of crime. Rather than being an agency-driven and functional fear response, the interview data showed that while these practices reduced victimization risk, they negatively impacted the overall health of the participants through feelings of lack of authenticity and self-censorship.

Imputing Unreported Hate Crimes Using Google Search Data

U.S. law requires the Attorney General to collect data on hate crime victimization from states and municipalities, but states and localities are under no obligation to cooperate by gathering or sharing information. Data production hence varies considerably across jurisdictions. This paper addresses the ensuing “missing data” problem by imputing unreported hate crimes using Google search rates for a racial epithet. It uses two alternative benchmarks for which jurisdictions more effectively collect hate crime data: all states that were not part of the erstwhile Confederacy, and those states with statutory provisions relating to hate crime reporting. We regress rates of racially-motivated hate crimes with African-American victims on Google searches and other relevant variables over 2004–2015 at the state-year level for each group of benchmark states. Adding the Google search rate for the epithet substantially enhances the model’s predictive power among benchmark states. We use the results of these regressions to impute hate crime rates, out-of-sample, to non-benchmark jurisdictions that do not robustly report hate crimes. The results imply a substantial number of unreported hate crimes, concentrated in particular jurisdictions. It also illustrates how internet search rates can be a source of data on attitudes that are otherwise hard to measure.

Beyond the Binary: The Issue of Intra-Minority Hostility and the Need to Challenge Conventional Victim/Perpetrator Frameworks Within Hate Studies.

It is well-established within the hate studies literature that the majority of hate crimes and incidents of targeted hostility are perpetrated by those in the "majority" society. In the UK, academic and official research consistently shows that young White, British males are most commonly the culprits of all forms of targeted victimization, especially racist hate. However, urban areas of "super-diversity" offer researchers an opportunity to understand hate crime victimization and perpetration in a more nuanced and comprehensive way. Hate studies research has slowly begun to highlight instances of people from marginalized and stigmatized groups being targeted on the basis of their identity by individuals who are also members of minority groups, sometimes even the same minority group as the victim. Very little is understood about this particular victimizing dynamic other than it appears to be an attempt by minority group members to "fit in" by adopting what they perceive to be majority group values and attitudes. By drawing from 44 qualitative in-depth interviews exploring the experiences of new migrants and refugees and observations from 20 months of grassroots engagement, this article challenges established theories of "othering" that overwhelmingly refer to binary, static majority/minority tensions. The stories of these too-often "hidden" victims of targeted hostility offer a fresh perspective on the relationships between victims of hate and perpetrators. The article also contributes new explanations as to why those who are often targeted go on to target others.

Assessing the Ecological Variation in the Police Response to Hate Crime: Evidence From New York City

As scholarly attention toward the etiology of hate crime offending and victimization continues to grow, there remain some empirical gaps regarding criminal justice interventions to such crimes. The lion's share of research has been focused on how agencies report bias crimes to official sources like the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program, but less work has been spent studying other aspects of police response like investigation or arrest. However, even less is known in whether an officer's ecological context is influential in this process despite space being vital to policing in general. To address this, we combined incident- and precinct-level data from the New York Police Department with neighborhood census information to understand if community dynamics were associated with the likelihood that a reported hate crime would be cleared through arrest. Using mixed effects models, our findings indicate some degree of clustering in hate crime clearances but that situational factors emerged with greater salience in the prediction of arrest. Supportive more so of the schema and focal concerns perspective of criminal justice processing, we offer pathways for future research and theoretical considerations.

Far-Right Extremism, Elections and Hate Crime: A Temporal Evaluation of Bias-Motivated Violence in Slovakia

Abstract The present study provides an initial attempt to assess the impact of extremist right electoral support on racially motivated and extremist violent crime rates across Slovak regions. We transcend previous research by examining associations between national and regional elections, immigration rates, vote-shares, and violent hate crime rates utilizing temporal statistics on racially motivated and extremist violent crimes, which are linked with data on support for nationalist parties and on indicators of socio-economic development. Results illustrate that extreme right parties matter, such that the higher their electoral vote-shares, the higher the violent hate crime incidence and victimization rates. We, also, find that high immigration rates strengthen the effect of electoral vote-shares on bias crime in Slovakia.

Toward a resilient, resistant, and reciprocal community: Everyday youth activism of Korean American and migrant students amidst COVID-19

Situated in AsianCrit, which emphasizes centrality of racism among Asians in education as well as youth activism scholarship that denotes the engagement of youth in informal, communal, and everyday political spheres, the current qualitative study aims to center and uplift the voices of Korean American and migrant students who were enthusiastically involved in a Korean Student Organization (pseudonym) since the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, this study explores Korean American and migrant students’ motivations, perspectives, and aspirations to participate in the organization at a predominantly white university in the Midwest since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. By highlighting how Korean American and migrant students foregrounded their experiences of racism and marginalization at a predominately white university during the COVID-19 pandemic by creating a variety of collective activities, events, and opportunities within and across the campus to survive, resist, and flourish amidst of heightened racist climates, this study will provide several implications for AsianCrit and youth activism scholarship. Together, the goal of this study is to bring attention to everyday youth activism and agency among Asian and Asian American students regarding racial justice and complicate and challenge the hegemonic representations of Asian and Asian Americans as model minorities, forever foreigners, or victims of anti-Asian hate crimes in contemporary U.S. society.

Prototypes of Hate and Expectations of the Model Victim.

This research explored the content of hate crime prototypes in a North American context, with particular attention to how such prototypes might influence blame attributions. In Study 1a, participants were recruited from a blended sample of universities (n = 110) and community members (n = 102) and asked to report their thoughts about typical hate crime offenses, victims, and offenders. These open-ended responses were coded, and common themes were identified. In Study 1b, a new group of participants (n = 290) were presented with these themes and asked to rate each for their characteristics of hate crimes. Studies 1a and 1b confirmed the presence of a clear prototype of hate crimes, such that (a) perpetrators were believed to be lower status White men with clear expressions of bias, (b) hate crime offenses were believed to be acts of interpersonal violence accompanied by slurs or verbal abuse, and (c) hate crime victims were thought to be members of a marginalized group who remain passive during the offense. Study 2 explored the consequences of victim prototypes on assessments of victim blame. Participants (n = 296) were recruited from York University and presented with a case vignette that varied the prototypicality of a victim of hate, depicting him as either Black or White and either passive, verbally responsive, or physically confrontational in the context of an assault. Participants showed greatest sympathy for the Black victim who passively ignored verbal harassment but increasingly assigned blame when the Black victim spoke or reacted physically. When the victim was White, participants showed little variation in their assessment of blame as a function of the victim's behavior. These results suggest that Black victims are subjected to greater behavioral scrutiny than White victims and that sympathy for victims of hate may be contingent on their passivity in the face of harassment.

Policing Hate Crime: Exploring the Issue with a Cohort of Sworn Police Officers

AbstractGlobally, 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.

The shadow of fear: hate crime victimization and stress after Charlottesville.

Recent years have witnessed an increase in highly publicized attacks targeting members of ethnoracial and religious minority groups. To date, existing research has primarily focused on the tendency for such "trigger events" to generate violent aftershocks. We argue that beyond such ripple effects, highly salient trigger events significantly increase hate-crime related stress among racial and ethnic minorities. Additionally, we explore whether these effects are limited to the group most clearly targeted, or if they "spill over" to other minoritized communities. To study reactions to hate crimes, we draw upon national survey data (N = 1,122) in combination with a natural experiment involving the Unite the Right rally and vehicle attack in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017. We employ an "unexpected event during survey" design to estimate the causal effect of the Charlottesville rally on stress about hate crimes. We first show that there was an increase in anti-Black hate crimes in the 2 weeks following the Charlottesville incident. We also find a corresponding increase in stress due to the perception of personal vulnerability to hate crimes among African-Americans. However, we do not observe a significant increase in levels of stress following the trigger event among Hispanics and Asian Americans. Our results suggest that highly publicized instances of intergroup violence can have significant impacts on stress about hate crime victimization within the target group. However, we find that this effect is short-lived, and that both violent aftershocks and the general climate of fear spurred by hate crimes may be racially bounded.

An Exploratory Analysis Examining the Relationship Between Protective and Risk Factors of Bullying and Hate Crime Victimization Within Schools

ABSTRACT Over the years, scholars have argued that there are similarities and differences between bullying and hate crimes within Americas’ schools. However, no known study has tested the claims that bullying and hate-related victimization are more similar (or different) and whether they share similar protective and/or risk factors. Utilizing the 2019 NCVS School Crime Supplement, the present study draws on several theoretical traditions to examine the protective and risk factors associated with bullying and hate-related victimization in schools. Skewed logistic regression models find that while there are some similarities between the protective and risk factors among bullying and hate-related victimization, there are also some noticeable and distinct differences. The findings fill important theoretical and empirical gaps in the bullying and hate crime literature. Further, the findings offer important policy implications as it relates to detection and prevention of bullying and hate-related victimization within schools.

Which Way to Turn

The author is autistic. Autism is an attribute that brings univariable focus, along with unusual mannerisms and humour. These characteristics have led to the author suffering psychological and physical abuse in the past. The author now works as an advocate to help bring justice to victims of such disability hate crimes. This article uses academic evidence and recent testimony from anonymised victims to argue that whichever course of action is taken to access justice, victims always struggle. Third-party reporting, reports to the police, and the duty of care supposedly offered by local agencies are frequently ineffective in supporting disabled people who are seeking to report crime, having been a victim of someone else’s prejudice. In concluding, the author, however, reveals a number of techniques adopted by disabled victims to ensure that they are listened to by agencies that are often unwilling to provide help and support.

Herstel voor slachtoffers van anti-LHBT hate crimes

Recovery for victims of anti-LGBT hate crimes The consequences of anti-LGBT hate crimes can be particularly significant for both the direct victims and the LGBT community. Additionally, it is evident that victims struggle to recover after experiencing such offenses. Based on findings of a qualitative and quantitative study conducted in six European countries, this article discusses the attitudes and knowledge among professionals and victims regarding the use of restorative justice for victims of anti-LGBT hate crimes. Victims and professionals indicate that more training is needed, both in the areas of LGBT-sensitivity and restorative practices, to facilitate the recovery of the harm caused to the victim.

Hate Crime and Class Vulnerability: A Case Study of White Nationalist Violence Against Unhoused Indigenous People

Abstract Advocates and academics have increasingly called on governments to recognize anti-homeless violence as a hate crime and type of domestic extremism, representing a broader trend in Westernized countries for responding to social issues through anti-hate policies. Can these approaches protect unhoused people? Drawing upon ethnographic interviews and observation with 50 unhoused community members in a Canadian city, we outline their experiences with anti-homeless and anti-Indigenous violence. Our findings show how hate crime approaches often (1) fail to consider intersectionality, especially how class contributes to vulnerability, and (2) overlook place-based victimization and how institutions enable class vulnerability. We call for more localized analyses of hate crime and introduce the concept of ‘cumulative risk of hate crime victimization’ to help address intersectionality.

Ingroup Empathy, Help, and Blame After Anti-LGBT+ Hate Crime.

Crimes motivated by hatred toward a person's sexual orientation or gender identity typically cause greater physical and emotional harm than comparative crimes not motivated by hate. Compounding these impacts, hate crime victims receive less empathy, less support, and are blamed more for their victimization both by society in general and by criminal justice agencies. However, as hate crimes are the epitome of intergroup hostility, the crimes are also likely to engender an ingroup empathy bias in which fellow LGBT+ people provide greater empathy to hate crime victims, potentially motivating greater support and reducing victim blaming for these particularly marginalized victims. Across three studies, we examined LGBT+ participants' empathic reactions to hate crime victims, along with their willingness to help victims and blame victims. In the Pilot Study (N = 131) and Study 1 (N = 600), we cross-sectionally showed that indirect experiences of hate crimes predicted a stronger LGBT+ identity which, in turn, was associated with greater empathy that predicted greater willingness to help victims and blame the victim less. In Study 2 (N = 657), we experimentally manipulated the motivation of a crime (hate vs. non-hate) and the group membership of the victim (ingroup-LGBT+ vs. outgroup-heterosexual) and found that crimes that had one or more group elements (i.e., involved an ingroup member and/or was motivated by hate) elicited greater empathy that, in turn, increased the willingness to help the victim and reduced victim blaming. Together, the findings provide cogent evidence that LGBT+ communities respond to anti-LGBT+ hate crimes with overwhelming empathy, and this ingroup empathy bias motivates helping behaviors and reduces victim blame, thereby buffering the marginalizing consequences of hate crimes. Policy implications include acknowledging and harnessing the importance of shared identities when practitioners and criminal justice agencies respond to anti-LGBT+ hate crimes.