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Addressing Hate Crime in the 21st Century: Trends, Threats, and Opportunities for Intervention
Abstract
Hate crimes, often referred to as bias-motivated crimes, have garnered greater public attention and concern as political rhetoric in the United States and internationally has promoted the exclusion of people based on their group identity. This review examines what we know about the trends in hate crime behavior and the legal responses to this problem across four main domains. First, we describe the legal framework and recent attempts to expand hate crime protections beyond historically disenfranchised groups. Second, we examine recent trends and patterns of hate crime victimization. Third, we review what is known about those who perpetrate hate crimes and those who experience hate crime victimization. Finally, we examine the efficacy of efforts to respond to and prevent hate crime. This review examines a wide range of bias-motivated harms and suggests how future research and policy can be more inclusive of victimization extending beyond traditionally understood hate crimes.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 6 is January 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
... As Perry (2001) argued in her conceptualization of "doing difference," hate crimes are mechanisms of oppression, intended to maintain pre-existing racialized (and heteronormative-see Lantz, 2022) power structures. This research posits that many hate crimes are ultimately intended to signal to these groups that they are not welcome-either in a specific community or neighborhood (see, for example, Green et al., 1998) or in society at large (as may be the case, for example, with contemporary anti-transgender violence; see -and are in danger of victimization because of their group status or identity (Farrell & Lockwood, 2023). In fact, an entire body of literature has emerged emphasizing the use of hate crime as a mechanism of informal social control and neighborhood defense, designed to send a message to neighborhood newcomers that they are unwelcome (King et al., 2009;Lyons, 2008b). ...
... This points to the need for both better training and the possibility of alternative reporting mechanisms, like third-party reporting centers (Myers & Lantz, 2020;Schweppe et al., 2020). Not only is post-victimization help-seeking an important precursor to the receipt of support and access to resources for dealing with the consequences of victimization, but the resulting victimization statistics are also often used to properly direct resources for dealing with intergroup conflict and hate crime at the community level; differential community underreporting can thus lead to the under-prioritization or deprioritization of hate crime as an important social problem by local community leaders and politicians (Farrell & Lockwood, 2023). ...
... Future research should explore the impacts of identity-based victimization among other subcultural groups and collectivities. There are some recent and controversial legislative efforts, for example, to extend hate crime laws to include non-traditional victim groups, like law enforcement personnel (Farrell & Lockwood, 2023). There are also legitimate concerns about the misuse of such laws to disproportionately punish marginalized populations, who hate crime laws are otherwise designed to protect, but who also typically have strained, even violent, relationships with the police (Mason, 2022). ...
... Research suggests that these intergroup interactions detrimentally affect the health and well-being of ethnic minorities (Lewis, Cogburn and Williams, 2015;Nandi, Luthra and Benzeval, 2020;Tuppat, 2022). Furthermore, studies reveal that hate crimes motivated by ethnic factors exert a more harmful impact on the well-being of ethnic minorities than crimes devoid of ethnic motivation (Mellgren, Andersson and Ivert, 2021;Farrell and Lockwood, 2023). Findings also indicate that experiences of ethnic discrimination erode the sense of identification with the host country (De Vroome, Verkuyten and Martinovic, 2014b) and trust in mainstream institutions within the host-society (Röder and Mühlau, 2012). ...
... Perceived ethnic discrimination is the belief that one has been treated differently because of one's ethnic origin (Lajevardi et al., 2020). Victimization of ethnic hate crime is the experience of a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender's bias against an ethnicity (Farrell and Lockwood, 2023). What EH has in common with these concepts is that they are about ethnicity-biased negative interactions. ...
... Importantly, it mitigates the underreporting issues that plague official hate crime statistics. Victims of hate crimes rarely report these incidents to the authorities (Farrell and Lockwood, 2023), especially ethnic minorities who report less frequently than members of the majority (Zaykowski, 2010;FRA, 2020). Our study emphasizes the value of (self-reported) EH in providing a more accurate portrayal of immigrants' day-today encounters with exclusion and hate. ...
The topic of this study is the experiences of ethnic harassment (EH) among first- and second-generation immigrants in Europe. EH is defined as unwanted conduct related to racial or ethnic origin that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment. Previous research has shown that EH has a negative impact on the health, well-being, and integration of immigrants. However, little is known about which immigrants are more likely to experience EH. This study aims to fill this gap. We develop a theoretical framework for understanding EH and use it to generate hypotheses about individual-level characteristics. We test these hypotheses using data from the Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey and analyze the experiences of EH among 12,596 immigrants in 17 European countries. Largely in line with theoretical expectations, results from logistic regression models reveal that immigrants are more likely to experience EH if they are Muslim, wear religious clothing, are from the second generation, are higher educated, are proficient in the host-country language, and perceive themselves to be overqualified for their job and face more economic hardship.
... Racial prejudice is an urgent threat in society. The US federal government has identified White supremacist extremism as a top domestic terror threat (National Security Council, 2021), and race-based hate crimes recently reached the highest level observed in over a decade (Farrell & Lockwood, 2023). While attempts to reduce racial bias are commonly carried out among adults, reducing bias earlier in development may provide more significant and longer-lasting bias reduction (Hazelbaker et al., 2022). ...
... Additionally, we enumerated suggestions for future research (summarized in Table 1) that may serve as a starting point for researchers investigating internal and external MRWP among children. We believe that this work is vital in the face of anti-desegregation and anti-CRT legislative efforts (Bailey, 2023;Pollock et al., 2022) and the increasing threat of race-based hate (Farrell & Lockwood, 2023) in order to better understand how to promote positive interracial attitudes and anti-racist allyship from early in life. ...
Racial bias peaks during middle childhood. The development of internal motivation to respond without prejudice (internal MRWP; i.e., a desire to act according to internalized beliefs about racial equality) and external motivation to respond without prejudice (external MRWP; i.e., the desire to appear non-prejudicial in order to avoid social censure or rejection) may help to reduce children’s racial bias. However, internal and external MRWP have almost exclusively been studied among adults. The current review seeks to situate adult internal and external MRWP research within established developmental psychological theories in order to provide a framework for needed developmental research in this area. We consider peer group norms, same- and cross-race friendships, and schools as possible contexts for internal and external MRWP development in middle childhood. Given the urgent threat that racial prejudice poses to society, better understanding the development of motivations to respond without prejudice from early in life is critical.
... Bias-related victimization exists on a spectrum of severity, manifesting as anything from hate crimes to noncriminal bias events. Hate crimes are criminal actions done explicitly targeting immutable characteristics of a person or population (Farrell & Lockwood, 2023). Special legislation has been given to biasmotivated crimes in recent decades, which has affected the reporting of such phenomena (Daniel, 2023). ...
Objective: The present study sought to understand what characteristics delineate experiences of repeat non-bias-related victimization and repeated bias-related victimization—specifically, the role of cultural factors and colorism in contributing to bias-related victimization among Latinx adults. Method: We use two waves of the Longitudinal Evaluation of Victimization of Latinos survey data collected from three sites (Boston, Houston/Galveston, San Diego) in 2018 and 2019. The data were collected to understand better the experiences of hate crime and other bias-related victimization of Latinx adults in the United States. We use multinomial logistic regression to determine what characteristics separate individuals from experiencing no bias-related victimization, discontinuation from bias-related victimization, initiation into bias-related victimization, and repeated bias-related victimization. Results: Results of our study show that the most notable distinction between experiences of repeat bias victimization and nonbiased victimization are visual markers of race and ethnicity. We find that participants who self-identified as having darker skin (risk ratio = 1.69, p < .001) were at a significantly higher risk of experiencing repeated bias-related victimization, a relationship that was absent in models looking at nonbias victimization. Marginal effects help to illuminate the dramatic difference skin tone plays in bias-related victimization as opposed to nonbiased victimization. Conclusions: Our findings convey research implications, particularly surrounding the role of colorism in bias and victimization scholarship. This study further connects the role of gender and colorism in experiencing bias-related victimization. Research and practice should continue to unpack these characteristics’ role in victimization risk, victimization outcomes, and victimization resources.
... Hate crimes are often underreported or misclassified due to personal biases or technical reasons (Dirks, 2022;Nolan et al., 2015). Successful prosecution of hate crimes requires law enforcement to prove bias as the motivating factor-a standard that is difficult to meet and often leads to further misclassification (Farrell and Lockwood 2023). ...
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.
... According to a Norwegian self-reporting survey, the hate crime victimisation rate is 3.8% in the general population, far higher than is shown in official crime statistics (Løvgren et al., 2022). Victimisation rates may be even higher because many hate crimes go unrecognised both by police and by victims, who do not necessarily self-identify as a victim of hate crime (Farrell & Lockwood, 2023;Solhjell, 2023). ...
This study investigates the views and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or intersex (LGBTQI) people in Norway of reporting hate crimes to the police, using more than 3000 responses to open-ended survey questions. We used thematic analysis to identify the variety of experiences of reporting hate incidents and the reasons for not reporting them. We identified a range of barriers to reporting incidents, and a few positive experiences, across the five dimensions of reporting we conceptualised. Our findings indicate a widespread lack of trust among LGBTQI citizens in the police’s ability to provide justice and protection in relation to hate crime victimisation. The different experiences and views of barriers to reporting we identified are clearly related to issues of police legitimacy, procedural justice, and legal cynicism. The findings help explain why underreporting of anti-LGBTQI hate crimes is a major issue in Norway, as it is elsewhere.
... Table 2 shows that these respondents, however, did not significantly differ from those without personal experiences of harassment in regard to future prevention measures -at least if we control for other factors in the multivariate model (however, the bivariate regression effect of offline harassment and intentions to move is significant). An explanation for this null finding could be that individuals who have experienced antisemitism indirectly, either via stories related by friends and family or via media reports, are similarly protective to those who have been personally harassed since hate crime research has highlighted that attacks on members of a minority group are intended to send 'messages' to the other group members and are meant to intimidate them (Farrell and Lockwood 2023). ...
... Currently, there is a considerable amount of literature on hate crimes in general, with emerging studies focusing on religion-based hate crime as a research field (Awan & Zempi, 2017;Haynes, Schweppe, & Taylor, 2017;Litvak et al., 2023;Perry, 2001). Farrell and Lockwood's (2023) review addressed various types of hate crime, emphasizing institutional levels (such as NGOs and other supportive organizations) and legal aspects. Díaz-Faes and Pereda (2022) reviewed the victim-offender overlap in hate crime. ...
Hate crime victimization targeting the victim’s religious identity poses a serious problem for individuals, communities, and societies. This systematic review describes countermeasures to such victimization, aiming for broad descriptive inclusion by canvassing personal adaptations, collective programs, and institutional-governmental policies. Targeting peer-reviewed articles published between 2002 and 2022, we found 44 articles describing measures related to religion-based victimization prevention. We classified the studied measures into 12 main types. The most salient personal adaptations included camouflage-type blending in to avoid victimization, using religion as a source of resilience, and changing routines to deflect risk. At the collective level, mobilizing community resilience, stereotype reduction, and place-based solutions were often researched. The relatively few institutional-level studies addressed measures to enhance the connection between victims and authorities by various means. The experimental studies heavily concentrated on experiments supporting the efficacy of changing people’s perceptions as a means of prevention. The review concludes with a discussion about research and policy implications.
... Combined with recent rise of social justice movements and public outrage related to high profile police brutality and racially-based hate crime cases (Hartig & Daniller, 2023), such as the George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and the Tyre Nichols cases (Hartig & Daniller, 2023;U.S. Department of Justice, 2022), to name just a few, such hate crimes and police misconduct perpetuate fear as they target vulnerable populations and marginalized communities (Farrell & Lockwood, 2023;Gilberstadt, 2020). In addition, these types of events become fodder for politically charged and divisive rhetoric centering around crime and justice issues (Byman, 2021). ...
Higher education has been in a time of rapid evolution and significant challenges prior to COVID-19, but a large and continuously growing body of empirical evidence suggests that the pandemic greatly accelerated those trials and brought them to a flashpoint. To our knowledge, the present work is the first post-pandemic to explore perceptions about the future of criminal justice (CJ) education. The present work seeks to address this gap and explore what factors CJ educators and advanced students identify as current and future challenges, concerns, and areas they need training or support. To gauge these perceptions, feedback was solicited from a select group of leaders, students, and journal editorial board members. Results explore priorities surrounding the increasing politicalization of higher education and the field in general, as well as the use of artificial intelligence, attacks on academic freedom, balancing research, and teaching responsibilities, creating curriculum relevant to new forms of crime, teaching diverse populations, declining program enrollments, and negative public perceptions about the value of CJ degrees as central concerns. Implications and direction of future research are offered.
... Such movements align with psychological research demonstrating that group identification can protect against depression (Cruwys et al., 2014) and promote well-being by fostering a sense of belonging and meaning (Jetten et al., 2017;Haslam et al., 2018). Despite these advances, hate crimes have risen in recent years (Miller and Rivas, 2022;Farrell and Lockwood, 2023) and global conflict persists (Pandey et al., 2023;United Nations, 2023). While group identification is inarguably beneficial, does overemphasizing categories come with a cost? ...
... The focus of this essay was primarily on violent forms of interpersonal victimization, and thus not much attention was given to the research on property victimization, corporate crime, or cybervictimization (which can encompass almost anything online, from stalking, harassment, defamation, bullying, and hate speech to fraud, hacking, and other technology-facilitated crimes; see Martellozzo and Jane 2017). More underdeveloped areas of victimology were also not discussed here, like labor and sexual exploitation, atrocity crimes, hate and bias-motivated offenses, and forms of emotional abuse such as gaslighting (Sweet 2019;Brehm and Frizzell 2021;Farrell and Lockwood 2023). As the literature matures moving forward, it will be important to more formally integrate these various forms of victimization into a life-course framework. ...
... At the same time, certain detrimental behaviors do not legally qualify as hate crimes, but they are equally bias-motivated and cause victims' exclusion and harm. This is why it is crucial to account for noncriminal bias events (Farrell & Lockwood, 2023). Concerning persons with disabilities, as the "mate crime" framework has underlined (Thomas, 2011), in some cases victim and perpetrator are known to each other; they have a mutual relationship as "friends" or "relatives" or share a degree of domesticity. ...
Research has drawn attention to the stigma and high rates of victimization among people with intellectual disabilities (ID) and an overlap between bias and non-bias victimization. However, studies of bias events or hate crime involving persons with ID are scarce. Using a self-report measure, we analyze lifetime bias victimization in a sample of 260 adults diagnosed with ID (age M = 41.7, SD = 12.0; 59.2% men), of whom 92 experienced bias victimization (age M = 41.2, SD = 11.9; 54.3% men), and compare the number of different types of victimization and the poly-victimization status between bias and non-bias victims. We also examine the following features: the victim, offender(s), victim–offender relationship, and location. Results show that bias victims experience a higher number of different types of victimization than non-bias victims (M = 7.74 and 4.96, respectively; p <.001, rrb=.37, ξ=.42) and are four times more likely to be poly-victims than non-bias victims (odds ratio [OR] = 4.37; 95% CI, p <.001). Most of the victims experienced a number of bias victimization episodes (89.1%; n = 82), and more than a quarter were injured (27.2%, n = 25) as a result of the victimization. All the bias victimizations by strangers were carried out in public places, as were most of the bias victimizations by acquaintances. Schoolmates and work colleagues perpetrated attacks at school and in the workplace, respectively. More than half of the victims, 63% (n = 58), spoke of the experience with someone, but only one reported it to the authorities. The paper provides a valuable descriptive and bivariate analysis of bias victimization of people with ID. The findings will help to understand bias violence against this population, highlighting the need for targeted and effective interventions.
Motivated by the surge in anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examines the community characteristics associated with the likelihood of their occurrence from 2020 to 2023 through interracial conflict and social disorganization perspectives. Analyzing data from the New York City Police Department and the American Community Survey across 2,198 census tracts, we find that communities with higher levels of Asian population, racial heterogeneity, and residential instability have higher odds of experiencing anti-Asian hate crime. However, concentrated disadvantage and defended neighborhoods (White, Black, and Hispanic) are not significant across all estimated models. These findings have important implications for both research and policy.
Hate crimes are bias motivated acts committed against a person because of their race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and disability. There is no specific crime type that constitutes a hate crime and can be committed against either a person or their property. Similar to how the type of crime can vary, there is ambiguity in who is a hate crime offender and victim. A hate crime offender can be a single individual (e.g., Buffalo grocery store shooter) or a group of people (e.g., Proud Boys). A hate crime victim can also be a single individual (e.g., Ahmaud Arbery) or a group of people (e.g., Pulse nightclub shooting). This ambiguity in what constitutes a hate crime could cause confusion for jurors and subsequently affect whether they render a legally sound verdict. This chapter will begin by summarizing current hate crime legislation. Next, we will describe how psychological theories and concepts (i.e., biases, schemas/stereotypes, lay theories, social cognitive theory, priming, group categorization) can form inaccurate perceptions of hate crimes and affect jurors’ decisions. Finally, the chapter will include suggestions for future research and propose methods to reduce hate crime misconceptions in the courtroom.
Research on hate crime stereotypes is limited by the lack of a validated instrument to measure individual beliefs in hate crime stereotypes/myths. Additionally, while university campuses present critical grounds for crosscultural exposure, this work has not examined beliefs in hate crime stereotypes in university students. We present a pilot study to validate a novel scale and understand the prevalence of hate crime myth acceptance (HCMA) in the campus context. The findings indicate a relatively high level of HCMA and that anti-Black prejudicial attitudes, some anti-Jewish attitudes, and rape myth acceptance are associated with HCMA. The findings provide guidance for future research and preliminary information about the extent of hate crime myth acceptance in the campus context.
Despite three decades of hate crime research encompassing both group threat theories and micro‐level perspectives, the social milieu explaining bias‐motivated crime remains inconclusive. Empirical inconsistencies regarding the social dynamics and structural features conducive to hate crime suggest the need for alternative frameworks for understanding bias‐motivated behavior. We integrate Black's theory of social control with his theory of social time to offer one such alternative that positions hate crime as a distinct form of conflict management with its own unique “conflict structure.” Focusing on the case as the unit of analysis, we specify the conditions that define the conflict structure of hate crime cases, including the absence of alternative social control, social distance and the lack of cross‐cutting social ties, and economic, relational, and cultural marginality. Further, we consider how changes in the vertical, relational, and cultural dimensions of conflict structures may impact the prevalence of hate crime. Our approach offers testable propositions, emphasizes the importance of case‐level and longitudinal data, and suggests long‐term strategies for bias crime prevention.
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.
The connection between online disinformation and crime is a topic of significant interest. An aspect o f this topic, with strong research potential, is the causal relationship between crimes committed in the real world and disinformation spreading campaigns in the digital world, often on social media platforms. In essence, this research paper focuses on exploring said causal
relationship, by seeking to establish a correlation between the diffusion of disinformation, online, and crimes committed offline;
specifically, hate crimes. For this purpose, a novel method was employed: using robust machine learning algorithms for time-series predictions, in order to reveal causal pathways that traditional quantitative techniques may be unable to capture. Thus, the research conducted here exhibits AI applications in social science research and, at the same time, provides a greater understanding of the link between online disinformation and offline crime.
Dark tourism, characterised by visits to sites associated with death and tragedy, often becomes a platform for social action. However, current literature lacks a comprehensive exploration of potential social action outcomes, particularly concerning human rights advocacy. This chapter introduces a new conceptualisation of volunteer travellers' experiences, distinguishing disorientation as a unique state separate from transitional and permanent liminality. By exploring social action outcomes in dark tourism volunteering, the chapter highlights the transformative potential of such experiences. While volunteering offers opportunities for personal growth and social engagement, it also presents challenges that may hinder social action. Theoretical frameworks like the framing theory of social action and the critical incident technique serve as valuable tools for understanding the complexities of dark tourism volunteering.
Background
The difficulties in defining hate crime, hate incidents and hate speech, and in finding a common conceptual basis constitute a key barrier toward operationalisation in research, policy and programming. Definitions disagree about issues such as the identities that should be protected, the types of behaviours that should be referred to as hateful, and how the ‘hate element’ should be assessed. The lack of solid conceptual foundations is reflected in the absence of sound data. These issues have been raised since the early 1990s (Berk, 1990; Byers & Venturelli, 1994) but they proved to be an intractable problem that continues to affect this research and policy domain.
Objectives
Our systematic review has two objectives that are fundamentally connected: mapping (1) original definitions and (2) original measurement tools of hate crime, hate speech, hate incidents and surrogate terms, that is, alternative terms used for these concepts (e.g., prejudice‐motivated crime, bias crime, among many others).
Search Methods
We systematically searched over 19 databases to retrieve academic and grey literature, as well as legislation. In addition, we contacted 26 country experts and searched 211 websites, as well as bibliographies of published reviews of related literature, and scrutiny of annotated bibliographies of related literature.
Inclusion Criteria
This review included documents published after 1990 found in academic literature, grey literature and legislation. We included academic empirical articles with any study design, as well as theoretical articles that focused specifically on defining hate crime, hate speech, hate incidents or surrogate terms. We also reviewed current criminal or civil legislation that is intended to regulate forms of hate speech, hate incidents and hate crimes. Eligible countries included Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Australia and New Zealand. For documents to be included in relation to research objective (1), they had to contain at least one original definition of hate speech, hate incidents or hate crimes, or any surrogate term. For documents to be included in relation to research objective (2), they had to contain at least one original measurement tool of hate speech, hate incidents or hate crimes, or any surrogate term. Documents could be included in relation to both research objectives.
Data Collection and Analysis
The systematic search covered 1 January 1990 to 31 December 2021, with searches of academic databases conducted between 8th March and 12th April 2022 yielding 35,191 references. We carried out country‐specific searches for grey literature published in the same time period between 27th August and 2nd December 2021. These searches yielded a total of 2748 results. We coded characteristics of the definitions and measurement tools, including the protected characteristics, the approaches to categorise the ‘hate element’ and other variables. We used univariate and bivariate statistical methods for data analysis. We also carried out a social network analysis.
Main Results
We provide as annex complete lists of the original definitions and measurement tools that met our inclusion criteria, for the use of researchers and policy makers worldwide. We included 423 definitions and 168 measurement tools in academic and grey literature, and 83 definitions found in legislation. To support future research and policy work in this area, we included a synthetic assessment of the (1) the operationalisability of each definition and (2) the theoretical robustness and transparency of each measurement tool. Our mapping of the definitions and measurement tools revealed numerous significant trends, clusters and differences between and within definitions and measurement tools focusing on hate crime, hate speech and hate incidents. For example, definitions and measurement tools tend to focus more on ethnic and religious identities (e.g., racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia) compared to sexual, gender and disability‐related identities. This gap is greater in the definitions and measurement tools of hate speech than hate crime. Our analysis showed geographical patterns: hate crime definitions and measurement tools are more likely to originate from Anglophonic countries, especially the USA, but hate speech definitions and measurement tools are more likely to originate from continental Europe. In terms of disciplinary fragmentation, our social network analysis revealed that the collaboration and exchange of conceptual frameworks and methodological tools between social sciences and computer science is limited, with most definitions and measurement tools clustering along disciplinary lines. More detailed findings are presented in the results section of the report.
Authors' Conclusions
There is an urgent need to close the research and policy gap between the protections of ‘ethnic and religious identities’ and other (less) protected characteristics such as gender and sexual identities, age and disability. There is also an urgent need to improve the quality of methodological and reporting standards in research examining hate behaviours, including transparency in methodology and data reporting, and discussion of limitations (e.g., bias in data). Many of the measurement tools found in the academic literature were excluded because they did not report transparently how they collected and analysed the data. Further, 41% of documents presenting research on hate behaviours did not provide a definition of what they were looking at. Given the importance of this policy domain, it is vital to raise the quality and trustworthiness of research in this area. This review found that researchers in different disciplinary areas (e.g., social sciences and computer science) rarely collaborate. Future research should attempt to build on existing definitions and measurement tools (instead of duplicating efforts), and engage in more interdisciplinary collaborations. It is our hope that that this review can provide a solid foundation for researchers, government, and other bodies to build cumulative knowledge and collaboration in this important field.
Hate crimes are reprehensible acts driven by animosity and bias against specific target groups, transcending borders and geographical boundaries. Effectively addressing hate crimes necessitates a profound understanding of the victims impacted by prejudice and hostility. To combat crimes rooted in prejudice, it is crucial to delve into the experiences of the victims. A comprehensive understanding of their needs, characteristics, and perspectives becomes paramount for conducting thorough investigations, countering criminal activities, and preventing further victimization. Within this framework, this chapter encompasses the identification of victim groups affected by hate crimes and a detailed exploration of the requisite measures to eradicate victimization. This multifaceted approach aims not only to address the immediate consequences of hate crimes but also to implement proactive strategies that contribute to the prevention of recurrent victimization.
The perception of criminality towards women is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that affects their well-being, safety, and access to justice. This paper reviews the existing literature on this topic, focusing on the descriptive methods and findings of previous studies. The paper describes the main factors that influence the perception of criminality towards women, such as gender stereotypes, media representations, and social norms. It also identifies the main themes and patterns that emerge from the descriptive research, such as the role of victim blaming, empathy, and emotions. The paper synthesizes and summarizes the key insights and implications of descriptive research for theory and practice, highlighting the gaps and challenges in the current knowledge and methods. The paper provides recommendations and suggestions for future research and policy on the perception of criminality towards women, based on the descriptive analysis of the literature. The paper concludes that more rigorous and comprehensive descriptive research is needed to understand and address the perception of criminality towards women in different contexts and settings.
Background:
Given the observed within-Asian disparity in COVID-19 incidence, we aimed to explore the differential preventive behaviors among Asian subgroups in the United States.
Methods:
Based on data from the Asian subsample (N = 982) of the 2020 Health, Ethnicity, and Pandemic survey, we estimated the weighted proportion of noncompliance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines on preventive behaviors and COVID-19 testing by Asian subgroups (Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Other Asian). We examined these subgroup differences after adjusting for demographic factors and state-level clustering.
Results:
Filipinos demonstrated the lowest rate of noncompliance for mask-wearing, social distancing, and handwashing. As compared with the Filipinos, our logistic models showed that the Chinese and the 'other Asians' subgroup had significantly higher risk of noncompliance with mask-wearing, while the Japanese, the Vietnamese, and other Asians were significantly more likely to report noncompliance with social distancing.
Conclusions:
The significant variation of preventive behavior across Asian subgroups signals the necessity of data disaggregation when it comes to understanding the health behavior of Asian Americans, which is critical for future pandemic preparedness. The excess behavioral risk among certain Asian subgroups (especially those 'other Asians') warrants further investigation and interventions about the driving forces behind these disparities.
Microaggressions are speech or actions constituting indirect, subtle, or unintentional acts of discrimination, and awareness of their harmful effects has grown in recent years. Increased awareness could improve inter‐group interactions, but also poses challenges. Fear of misspeaking, or fear of being subject to microaggressions can stifle interactions. We investigated how people from different racial and ethnic groups and political orientations judge the severity of various forms of racial microaggressions, and we tested a specific strategy to mitigate the harm of racial microaggressions. Specifically, in Experiment 1, White participants (WP) and participants of colour (POC) rated the severity of various microaggressions (depicted in vignettes). Participants also reported their political orientation and strength of racial/ethnic identity. Regardless of racial/ethnic group, left‐leaning political orientation was associated with higher perceived severity of racial microaggressions. Furthermore, severity ratings from POC were higher for those who identified more strongly with their ethnic/racial group. In Experiment 2, we again obtained severity ratings, but we used microaggression vignettes that were manipulated to reveal the source s mindset as either reparatory and open‐minded (ROM), or not. Critically, severity ratings were significantly lower for vignettes in which ROM was messaged. The importance of these results is twofold. First, they reveal that political orientation can override other factors like racial group membership when judging the severity of racial microaggressions, and second, they show that augmenting problematic speech with information about mindset, can mitigate perceived harm. Overall, this work contributes to a richer understanding of microaggressions, and has implications for theory and practice.
The present study examined factors that could be associated with bias victimization according to intergroup threat theory, namely socioeconomic status (SES), acculturation (Anglo orientation and Latino orientation), immigrant status, and their interactions. Self-identified Latino participants (N = 910) from three cities in the United States were queried about experiences with bias victimization, specifically hate crime and noncriminal bias victimization. Findings revealed that levels of bias victimization, hate crime, and noncriminal bias victimization were associated with SES, Anglo orientation, immigrant status, and their interactions, although in some unpredicted ways. Interactions among key variables helped clarify the roles of these factors in concert on bias victimization. The hate crimes against U.S.-born Latinos and the victimization risk associated with increasing Anglo orientations among immigrants contradicts predictions of intergroup threat theory. More nuanced analyses of social locations are needed to examine bias victimization.
Latinx adults have become increasingly vulnerable to bias motivated victimization. The impact of such incidents on Latinx communities is severely understudied, particularly concerning whether or not victims will seek help as a result of such events. Evidence within other victimization contexts demonstrate Latinx populations may be less likely to seek formal help from police, medical providers, and other formal authorities, relying instead on informal support networks such as family and friends. The current study sought to understand formal and informal help-seeking behavior among Latinx adults who experienced bias motivated victimization. The Understanding and Measuring Bias Victimization against Latinos study obtained rates of bias victimization and subsequent help-seeking behavior among Latinx adults who reported experiencing bias victimization (n = 315, 34.6% of full sample of 910). Those who experience bias victimization seek formal help at much lower rates than informal forms of support. Logistic regression analyses controlling the type of victimization demonstrated that participants who experienced a victimization constituting a hate crime were more likely to seek formal help compared to experiencing non-criminal bias events. Implications include addressing barriers to Latinx bias victims seeking forms of help, in addition to understanding the potential polyvictimization histories that predict why Latinx adults may decide to seek help.
Employing a racialized gendered lens, we explore the perceptions of status threat and victimhood among a sample of White Americans following the 2016 presidential election. Specifically, we draw upon such theoretical and empirical work to frame our analyses of the associations between perceptions of a white "victim" ideology and anti-Black Lives Matter (BLM) sentiments and how such associations may be conditioned by support for Trump and holding patriarchal gender normative beliefs. We propose that the BLM movement may be perceived as a "threat" to many White Americans. Furthermore, we believe Whites' anti-BLM sentiments will be enhanced by support for Trump, given his racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and oppressive tendencies. Moreover, we believe that these associations will differ based on gender and beliefs in patriarchal gender norms, as White men and women are likely to feel status threat in varied ways. Mix support for our propositions and complex gendered differences are revealed. Implications are discussed.
Previous research has identified numerous barriers to reporting hate crimes. However, high variability exists in the outcome measures considered across multiple studies, including whether hate crimes encompass non-criminal behaviours, whether victims’ perceptions are considered bias indicators, and whether the incident is reported to police or to other organisations. These inconsistencies prevent an understanding of whether different barriers relate to different types of hate crimes. This article presents the results of an exploratory empirical study with a convenience sample of members of minorities facing hate crime victimisation in Victoria, Australia (N = 260). Our study participants experienced different types of barriers regarding incidents with different levels of perceived severity. Internalisation and lack of knowledge were more relevant to the underreporting of incidents perceived as less serious—verbal assault. Fear of consequences, lack of trust in statutory agencies, and accessibility were more relevant to the underreporting of incidents perceived as more serious—physical violence and property destruction.
The term hate crime is instinctively understood across policy and practice domains, but is defined differently across contexts. Whilst it is accepted that a standard universal and internationally accepted definition of a hate crime is not possible or desirable, I will seek to create common definitional boundaries for the term hate crime, which allows for jurisdictional flexibility whilst retaining a common core of understanding. In doing so, I will set out the parameters of the concept, and then articulate the reasons for excluding particular manifestations of targeted hostility from its remit. I will finally describe the core constituent elements of a hate crime, and move towards a proposal for definitional boundaries for the term hate crime that applicable across scholarly and policy domains.
Despite the growing number of bias-motivated violence studies, the evidence available remains limited, and there are several gaps in our understanding of the complex relationship between negative attitudes and biased violence. In addition, the literature on this topic has many facets and nuances and is often contradictory, so it is difficult to obtain a clear overall picture. Research has made good progress in this area, but it still suffers from a lack of systematization and from a highly segmented approach to victimization and offending. To contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the subject, this integrative narrative review provides a critical reappraisal of the theoretical, methodological, and empirical research from a systemic perspective. To this end, 134 academic publications on personality and social psychology, clinical psychology, sociology, criminology, and related disciplines were examined. The evidence suggests that although bias-motivated violence shares characteristics with other types of offensive behavior, it is actually a unique phenomenon due to its background rooted in prejudice, identity, and attitudes in which the intersection of individual, psychosocial, and ecological factors is especially relevant. The impact on the victim and their community is diverse, but it has a series of distinctive severe psychological consequences that significantly reduce the probability that incidents will be reported. Here, we present a series of findings and reflections on bias-motivated violence and provide recommendations for research, practice, and policy.
“BBQ Becky” and “Karen” memes reference real-world incidents in which Black individuals were harassed by White women in public spaces. In what I term the BBQ Becky meme genre, Black meme creators use humor, satire, and strategic positioning to perform a set of interrelated social commentaries on the behavior of White women. By conducting a visual Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA) of BBQ Becky memes, I argue that Becky and Karen memes are a cultural critique of White surveillance and White racial dominance. I find that memes in the BBQ Becky meme genre call attention to, and reject, White women’s surveillance and regulation of Black bodies in public spaces—making an important connection between racialized surveillance of the past and contemporary acts of “casual” racism. This meme genre also disrupts White supremacist logics and performative racial ignorance by framing Karens and Beckys as racist—not just disgruntled or entitled. Finally, in a subversion and reversal of power dynamics, Karen and BBQ Becky memes police White supremacy and explicitly call for consequences, providing Black communities with a form of agency. Hence, I conclude that Black memes matter in the struggle for racial equity.
The media frequently describes the 2017 Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ rally as a turning point for the alt-right and white supremacist movements. Social movement theory suggests that the media attention and public discourse concerning the rally may have engendered changes in social identity performance and visibility of the alt-right, but this has yet to be empirically tested. The presence of the movement on YouTube is of particular interest, as this platform has been referred to as a breeding ground for the alt-right. The current study investigates whether there are differences in language use between 7142 alt-right and progressive YouTube channels, in addition to measuring possible changes as a result of the rally. To do so, we create structural topic models and measure bigram proportions in video transcripts, spanning approximately 2 months before and after the rally. We observe differences in topics between the two groups, with the ‘alternative influencers’, for example, discussing topics related to race and free speech to a larger extent than progressive channels. We also observe structural breakpoints in the use of bigrams at the time of the rally, suggesting there are changes in language use within the two groups as a result of the rally. While most changes relate to mentions of the rally itself, the alternative group also shows an increase in promotion of their YouTube channels. In light of social movement theory, we argue that language use on YouTube shows that the Charlottesville rally indeed triggered changes in social identity performance and visibility of the alt-right.
TikTok is the fastest-growing application today, attracting a huge audience of 1.5 billion active users, mostly children and teenagers. Recently, the growing presence of extremist’s groups on social media platforms became more prominent and massive. Yet, while most of the scholarly attention focused on leading platforms like Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, the extremist immigration to other platforms like TikTok went unnoticed. This study is a first attempt to find the Far-right’s use of TikTok: it is a descriptive analysis based on a systematic content analysis of TikTok videos, posted in early 2020. Our findings reveal the disturbing presence of Far-right extremism in videos, commentary, symbols and pictures included in TikTok’s postings. While similar concerns were with regard to other social platforms, TikTok has unique features to make it more troublesome. First, unlike all other social media TikTok’ s users are almost all young children, who are more naïve and gullible when it comes to malicious contents. Second, TikTok is the youngest platform thus severely lagging behind its rivals, who have had more time to grapple with how to protect their users from disturbing and harmful contents. Yet, TikTok should have learned from these other platforms’ experiences and apply TikTok’s own Terms of Service that does not allow postings that are deliberately designed to provoke or antagonize people, or are intended to harass, harm, hurt, scare, distress, embarrass or upset people or include threats of physical violence.
This article explores the effect of explicitly racial and inflammatory speech by political elites on mass citizens in a societal context where equality norms are widespread and generally heeded yet a subset of citizens nonetheless possesses deeply ingrained racial prejudices. The authors argue that such speech should have an ‘emboldening effect’ among the prejudiced, particularly where it is not clearly and strongly condemned by other elite political actors. To test this argument, the study focuses on the case of the Trump campaign for president in the United States, and utilizes a survey experiment embedded within an online panel study. The results demonstrate that in the absence of prejudiced elite speech, prejudiced citizens constrain the expression of their prejudice. However, in the presence of prejudiced elite speech – particularly when it is tacitly condoned by other elites – the study finds that the prejudiced are emboldened to both express and act upon their prejudices.
Internet and social media participation open doors to a plethora of positive opportunities for the general public. However, in addition to these positive aspects, digital technology also provides an effective medium for spreading hateful content in the form of cyberbullying, bigotry, hateful ideologies, and harassment of individuals and groups. This research aims to investigate the growing body of online hate research (OHR) by mapping general research indices, prevalent themes of research, research hotspots, and influential stakeholders such as organizations and contributing regions. For this, we use scientometric techniques and collect research papers from the Web of Science core database published through March 2019. We apply a predefined search strategy to retrieve peer-reviewed OHR and analyze the data using CiteSpace software by identifying influential papers, themes of research, and collaborating institutions. Our results show that higher-income countries contribute most to OHR, with Western countries accounting for most of the publications, funded by North American and European funding agencies. We also observed increased research activity post-2005, starting from more than 50 publications to more than 550 in 2018. This applies to a number of publications as well as citations. The hotbeds of OHR focus on cyberbullying, social media platforms, co-morbid mental disorders, and profiling of aggressors and victims. Moreover, we identified four main clusters of OHR: (1) Cyberbullying, (2) Sexual solicitation and intimate partner violence, (3) Deep learning and automation, and (4) Extremist and online hate groups, which highlight the cross-disciplinary and multifaceted nature of OHR as a field of research. The research has implications for researchers and policymakers engaged in OHR and its associated problems for individuals and society.
This article examines the relationship between becoming disillusioned with racist ideas and/or groups and the decision to leave organize white supremacism. We explore a classical sociological puzzle about the indeterminate ways that beliefs and actions inform each other. Drawing on a unique dataset from in-depth interviews with former members of U.S. white supremacist groups, we examine disillusionment and exit in a volatile social world in which both beliefs and actions often change abruptly.
One of the primary motivations for hate crime laws is that hate crimes “hurt more.” But, hate crimes are often committed by groups, and research indicates that crimes committed by groups are also more violent than other crimes. This research focuses on one type of harm, physical injury, asking: are hate crimes more violent because they involve co-offenders or because of the bias motivation behind the incident? Results using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) indicate that hate crimes are positively associated with serious injury, but that this association is partially driven by co-offenders. More importantly, co-offending moderates this relationship: incidents involving bias and co-offending are especially violent. Anti-sexual orientation incidents were an exception to this pattern, however, and are likely to be violent regardless of co-offending. These results suggests that hate crimes do hurt more, but that this relationship is partially attributable to the influence of co-offenders.
A sufficient body of research, originally American and British, as well as practice has been accumulated in the last decades in the field of hate crime. Modern understanding of the issue distinguishes multinational and global character of the harm appearing due to hate crime, thus setting up topicality of this crucial problem. This paper is aimed at description of measures of effective prevention of hate crime and general considerations for an effective strategy of hate crime prevention and combating proposed by well recognized specialists in the field, mentioning prioritizing the response to hate crime within the police department, establishing multi-agency task forces, training police officers, responding to hate-crime victims’ needs, increasing police presence and attention in high-risk neighbourhoods, monitoring hate groups and tracking hate incidents, reaching out to minority communities, engaging educational institutions and the mass media. Reporting on recent development of Latvian Criminal Law regulation related to hate crime author sets up some specific problematic issues and discusses solution options.
We examine the patterns of social polarization, with the case of Michael Brown shooting as an empirical basis for discussing the role of social media in promoting polarized viewpoints. In doing so, we test a model that synthesizes the interplay between text polarity in Twitter and four attributes of U.S. cities (N = 216): (1) geographic location, (2) race, (3) poverty, and (4) technological condition. Our findings supported hypothesized functions of socio-environmental traits. However, the extents of polarization in tweet-texts were subtler than expected. Furthermore, the finding concerning poverty suggests that certain urban environments are more conducive to exacerbating racial tensions, reproducing them into social media narratives. We suggest future studies and discuss the implications for societal divide.
In two experimental studies (N = 120; N = 102), we apply intergroup emotions theory (IET) to examine the effects of hate crime on other community members. With participants from an oft-targeted group-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans people, we are the first to show empirically that hate crimes elicit more pronounced emotional and behavioural responses in other members of the victims' community than comparable non-hate crimes. The findings also reveal the psychological processes behind these effects. Consistent with IET, hate crimes were seen to pose more of a group-based threat and so led to heightened emotional reactions (anger and anxiety) and, subsequently, to behavioural intentions (avoidance and pro-action). Importantly, we also show that hate crime victims, due to increased perceptions of similarity, received more empathy than non-hate crime victims. Such empathy, although neglected in previous research, was shown to be a potential mediator in understanding the indirect effects of hate crime. Results are discussed in terms of their contribution to psychological theory and their potential to support the argument for the utility and appropriateness of hate crime legislation.
In order to serve as an antidote to extremist messages, counter-messages (CM) are placed in the same online environment as extremist content. Often, they are even tagged with similar keywords. Given that automated algorithms may define putative relationships between videos based on mutual topics, CM can appear directly linked to extremist content. This poses severe challenges for prevention programs using CM. This study investigates the extent to which algorithms influence the interrelatedness of counter- and extremist messages. By means of two exemplary information network analyses based on YouTube videos of two CM campaigns, we demonstrate that CM are closely—or even directly—connected to extremist content. The results hint at the problematic role of algorithms for prevention campaigns.
This article aims to address two questions: how does hate speech manifest on North American white supremacist websites; and is there a connection between online hate speech and hate crime? Firstly, hate speech is defined and the research methodology upon which the article is based is explained. The ways that 'hate' groups utilize the Internet and their purposes in doing so are then analysed, with the content and the functions of their websites as well as their agenda examined. Finally, the article explores the connection between hate speech and hate crime. I argue that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that speech can and does inspire crime. The article is based in the main on primary sources: a study of many 'hate' websites; and interviews and discussions with experts in the field.
Many hate crimes are not reported and even fewer hate crimes result in an arrest. This study investigates patterns of victim reporting and arrest for hate crimes in two parts. First, using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, we find that, controlling for offense severity, hate crimes are less likely than non-bias crimes to be reported to the police and that the police are less likely to take further action for hate crimes, compared to non-hate crimes. Second, we use data from the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and the National Incident-Based Reporting System to compare differences between types of hate crimes in the likelihood of crime clearance. We find that those hate crimes most likely to result in arrest are those that fit the profile of a “stereotypical” hate crime: violent incidents, incidents committed by hate groups, and incidents involving white offenders and black victims.
Based on a survey of 593 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the United Kingdom, this study shows that direct anti-LGBT hate crimes (measured by direct experiences of victimization) and indirect anti-LGBT hate crimes (measured by personally knowing other victims of hate crime) are highly prolific and frequent experiences for LGBT people. Our findings show that trans people are particularly susceptible to hate crimes, both in terms of prevalence and frequency. This article additionally highlights the negative emotional and (intended) behavioral reactions that were correlated with an imagined hate crime scenario, showing that trans people are more likely to experience heightened levels of threat, vulnerability, and anxiety compared with non-trans LGB people. The study found that trans people are also more likely to feel unsupported by family, friends, and society for being LGBT, which was correlated with the frequency of direct (verbal) abuse they had previously endured. The final part of this study explores trans people’s confidence levels in the Government, the police, and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in relation to addressing hate crime. In general, trans people felt that the police are not effective at policing anti-LGBT hate crime, and they are not respectful toward them as victims; this was especially true where individuals had previous contact with the police. Respondents were also less confident in the CPS to prosecute anti-LGBT hate crimes, though the level of confidence was slightly higher when respondents had direct experience with the CPS. The empirical evidence presented here supports the assertion that all LGBT people, but particularly trans individuals, continue to be denied equal participation in society due to individual, social, and structural experiences of prejudice. The article concludes by arguing for a renewed policy focus that must address this issue as a public health problem.
Studies have demonstrated that hate crime victimisation has harmful effects for individuals. Victims of hate crime report anger, nervousness, feeling unsafe, poor concentration and loss of self-confidence. While victims of non-hate crimes report similar feelings, harm is intensified for hate crime victims due to the targeted nature of the incident. While there is some evidence that experiencing or even witnessing hate crime may have a detrimental effect on residents’ community life, the effects of being victim of a hate crime inside one’s own neighbourhood remain unstudied. Using census data combined with survey data from 4396 residents living across 148 neighbourhoods in Brisbane, Australia, this study examines whether residents who report hate crime within their own neighbourhood differ in their participation in community life when compared to victims of non-hate crime or those who have not been victimised. This is the first study to focus on victims’ views on: how welcoming their neighbourhood is to ethnic diversity; their attachment to their neighbourhood; their frequency of social interactions with neighbours; their number of friends and acquaintances in the neighbourhood; and their fear of crime. Results from propensity score matching (PSM) indicate that there are important differences in patterns of neighbourhood participation across these three groups.
Background/Context
Billions of dollars are spent annually on professional development (PD) for educators, yet few randomized controlled trials (RCT) have demonstrated the ultimate impact PD has on student learning. Further, while policymakers and others speak to the role schools should play in developing students’ civic awareness, RCTs of PD designed to foster civic learning are rare. This randomized controlled trial contributes to the knowledge base on the effectiveness of PD designed to integrate civic learning, ethical reflection, and historical thinking skills into high school humanities courses.
Focus of Study
The study examined the impact of a PD intervention in two areas: (a) teacher self-efficacy, burnout, and professional engagement and satisfaction; and (b) the academic, civic, social, and ethical competencies of 9th and 10th grade students in the teachers’ classes.
Population/Participants/Subjects
The study involved 113 teachers and 1,371 9th and 10th grade students in 60 high schools from eight metropolitan regions in the United States.
Intervention/Program/Practice
The intervention, Facing History and Ourselves, provides PD through a five-day seminar, curricular materials, and follow-up coaching and workshops to help teachers develop their capacities to implement an interdisciplinary historical case study unit using student-centered pedagogy.
Research Design
The study used a school-level, randomized, experimental design to investigate impacts of the intervention for teachers and their 9th and 10th grade students.
Findings/Results
Intervention teachers showed significantly greater self-efficacy in all eight assessed domains, more positive perceptions of professional support, satisfaction and growth, and greater personal accomplishment. Intervention students demonstrated stronger skills for analyzing evidence, agency, and cause and effect on a historical understanding performance measure; greater self-reported civic efficacy and tolerance for others with different views; and more positive perceptions of the classroom climate and the opportunities afforded for engaging with civic matters. Fidelity analysis found these causal effects despite the fact that roughly half of the intervention teachers did not fully implement the program.
Conclusions/Recommendations
Educators need evidence-based approaches for teaching complex social, civic, and political issues enabling students of diverse mindsets and backgrounds to engage constructively with one another while obtaining necessary skills and knowledge. These findings provide empirical support for a professional development approach that engages teachers in fostering academic and civic competencies critical to both participation in a democracy and success in college and career.
In 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Mathew Sheppard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Protection act and thereby extended the list of previously protected classes of victims from actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, disability and sex orientation to gender and gender identity. Over 45 states, the District of Columbia and the federal government now include hate crime statutes that increase penalties when offenders perpetrate hate crimes against protected classes of victims. Penalty enhancement statutes sanction unlawful bias conduct arguably because they result in more severe injuries relative to non-bias conduct. We contend that physical injuries vary by bias type and are not equally injurious. Data on bias crimes was analyzed from the National Incident Based Reporting System. Descriptive patterns of bias crimes were identified by offense type, bias motivation and major and minor injuries. Using Multivariate analyses, we found an escalating trend of violence against racial minorities. Moreover, relative to non-bias crimes, only anti-White and anti-lesbian bias crimes experienced our two prong “animus” criteria of disproportionate prevalence and severity of injury. However, when compared to anti-White bias, anti-Black bias crimes were more prevalent and likely to suffer serious injuries. Implications for hate crime jurisprudence are discussed.
Research about the Muslim American experience post-9/11 is sorely lacking. Perceptions of stigma as a predictor of Muslim American responses to 9/11 were examined. Negative cognitive and emotional responses were predicted by perceptions of stigma but not behavioral changes.
Media coverage of political insurgency can inform and influence public opinion in understanding how dissident groups operate. This chapter, informed by Frame Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis, addresses the research question, “What are the narratives unfolding around white supremacists’ depiction in US mainstream media?” The study reveals a shift in media narratives toward labeling hate crime as domestic terror, the scattered media practice to sanitize or humanize hate crime, and a recurring blame on Trump for failing to delegitimize white nationalism.
Significance
This study investigates whether the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated prejudice and discrimination against racial/ethnic minority groups. Results from a nationally representative survey experiment about roommate selection suggest that incidents of anti-Asian hostility reported in the media are not isolated acts but signal-amplified racism against East Asians. While popular rhetoric has blamed East Asians for the pandemic, we find that COVID-19–associated discrimination has spilled over to South Asians and Hispanics, suggesting a generalized phenomenon of xenophobia. Prejudice fueled by COVID-19 against Asians has been particularly widespread, but for Hispanics, such negative sentiments are mitigated by respondents’ prior social contact with them. These findings highlight the need to develop a multitargeted approach to address racism and xenophobia associated with COVID-19.
The former Trump Administration introduced policies focused on tightening national borders and limiting migration. These policies were often prefaced with strong rhetoric designed to disparage or derogate international racial, ethnic, and spiritual communities seeking entrance to the United States. In response, the media and members of the general public suggested that Trump’s words and actions resulted in a backlash effect by significantly influencing domestic hate crimes; however, these sources are missing the empirical evidence to support such a claim. Using the UCR and multiple analytical techniques, this study aims to explore this relationship further by examining the influence of the former Trump Administration’s rhetoric on hate crimes in the United States. Results indicate that, in support of public assumptions, Trump’s narrative may promote violence targeting select communities.
Significance
Violent acts that are widely publicized and perceived as anti-Black may harm the mental health of observers, particularly Black Americans. We identified 49 incidents of racial violence in the United States, occurring between 2013 and 2017 and receiving widely varying levels of search interest. We show that Black but not White Americans reported poorer mental health in weeks when two incidents of anti-Black violence occurred and when national interest was higher. Reducing racial violence, including police killings of Black individuals, is likely to benefit the mental health of Black Americans nationally.
Traditionally, the literature has sought to understand the impact of racial minority status and trauma as it relates to interpersonal violence, domestic violence, and sexual assault. What has not been as extensively reviewed and summarized is how racially or ethnically motivated hate crimes impact the mental health of minorities—particularly Latinx/Hispanic groups. This review aims to summarize the current body of literature on the intersection of race-motivated hate crime and trauma responses within Latinx community. To do so, the theoretical foundation for this inquiry will build from a race-based trauma perspective. Specifically, this review connects existing frameworks for race and trauma and integrates literature that examines Latinx or Hispanic populations that have experienced discrimination, bias, or hate crime as a result of their identity or perceived identity. The importance of situating bias or hate events within the trauma literature stems from a lack of overall formal evaluation of these events, and how these occurrences are historically overlooked as a traumatic stressor. The findings of this review suggest that (1) experiencing racially motivated victimization can cause adverse mental and physical health outcomes in Latinxs and (2) currently, there is only one study that has examined the impact of hate crime on Latinxs in the United States. This leaves the field with unanswered questions about the impact of hate crime victimization among Latinxs, which is an ever-growing area in need of attention.
Based on the issues illuminated throughout the book, Chap. 9 provide recommendations that are designed to overcome the obstacles to measuring and responding to hate crimes. The chapter summarizes recommendations from previous brainstorming sessions from scholars, law enforcement practitioners, civil rights, community, and victims’ groups and explains their relevance to the problems that preclude the accurate measurement of hate crimes. The chapter describes the importance of having a written hate crime policy, formal training, improved community engagement, improving hate crime data collection and mandatory reporting, engaging local politicians, tracking non-criminal bias incidents, and enhancing the role of the prosecutor. Chapter 9 concludes with best practices models from several police department around the country and explains why their approach to hate crimes is so effective.
Anti-Asian discrimination and assaults have increased significantly during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, contributing to a “secondary contagion” of racism. The United States has a long and well-documented history of both interpersonal and structural anti-Asian discrimination, and the current pandemic reinforces longstanding negative stereotypes of this rapidly growing minority group as the “Yellow Peril.”
We provide a general overview of the history of anti-Asian discrimination in the United States, review theoretical and empirical associations between discrimination and health, and describe the associated public health implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing relevant evidence from previous disasters in US history that became racialized.
Although the literature suggests that COVID-19 will likely have significant negative effects on the health of Asian Americans and other vulnerable groups, there are reasons for optimism as well. These include the emergence of mechanisms for reporting and tracking incidents of racial bias, increased awareness of racism’s insidious harms and subsequent civic and political engagement by the Asian American community, and further research into resilience-promoting factors that can reduce the negative health effects of racism.
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is believed to have emerged in Wuhan, China in late December 2019 and began rapidly spreading around the globe throughout the spring months of 2020. As COVID-19 proliferated across the United States, Asian Americans reported a surge in racially motivated hate crimes involving physical violence and harassment. Throughout history, pandemic-related health crises have been associated with the stigmatization and “othering” of people of Asian descent. Asian Americans have experienced verbal and physical violence motivated by individual-level racism and xenophobia from the time they arrived in America in the late 1700s up until the present day. At the institutional level, the state has often implicitly reinforced, encouraged, and perpetuated this violence through bigoted rhetoric and exclusionary policies. COVID-19 has enabled the spread of racism and created national insecurity, fear of foreigners, and general xenophobia, which may be related to the increase in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic. We examine how these crimes – situated in historically entrenched and intersecting individual-level and institutional-level racism and xenophobia – have operated to “other” Asian Americans and reproduce inequality.
Some interventions could help to reduce racism and rein in the use of unnecessary force in police work, but the evidence base is still evolving. Some interventions could help to reduce racism and rein in the use of unnecessary force in police work, but the evidence base is still evolving.
In this essay, we review how the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic that began in the United States in early 2020 has elevated the risks of Asian Americans to hate crimes and Asian American businesses to vandalism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the incidents of negative bias and microaggressions against Asian Americans have also increased. COVID-19 is directly linked to China, not just in terms of the origins of the disease, but also in the coverage of it. Because Asian Americans have historically been viewed as perpetually foreign no matter how long they have lived in the United States, we posit that it has been relatively easy for people to treat Chinese or Asian Americans as the physical embodiment of foreignness and disease. We examine the historical antecedents that link Asian Americans to infectious diseases. Finally, we contemplate the possibility that these experiences will lead to a reinvigoration of a panethnic Asian American identity and social movement.
Hate crimes are notoriously underestimated evident by significant differences reported between the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Between 2004 and 2012, an average of 269,000 victimizations were reported by the NCVS; simultaneously, UCR hate crime statistics reported an average of 8,770 incidents (FBI UCR Hate Crime Statistics, 2004-2012) implicating sizable hate crime underreporting. We present two hypotheses to explain the dark figure of hate crime reporting. First, we hypothesize that bias crime victims, relative to nonbias crime victims, are less likely to report their victimization to police. Second, we hypothesized that misperceptions of police legitimacy by groups with strained relations with police who are also at risk for hate victimization explain declinations to report. Using stepwise logistic regression, controlling in subsequent models with victim, offender, and situational factors previously found to increase nonbias crime victim reporting, we detected an increasingly stronger propensity for bias crime victims to not report their victimization. We also found that victim misperception of police legitimacy evident by the absence of confidence (29.2%) and victim decisions to report to different official (22.3%) largely explain underreporting. Implications for victim perceptions of police legitimacy and their ability to discharge procedural justice are discussed. Improved public relations with communities who sustain a strained relationship with police in conjunction with proactive, clear enforcement policies, and practices are suggested.
This chapter attempts to synthesize the literatures of microaggressions and proposes a model of online racism that includes both subtle and explicit forms that represent the range of experiences users may have online. Three types of online racism are online racial microaggressions, online racial discrimination, and online hate crimes. The chapter outlines examples of each type. Heeding the call to have the “microaggressed” define their experiences, interview data are utilized from a sample of Adolescents of Color. The chapter outlines the nature and impact of online racism for youth development. Furthermore, it argues that future research on online racism should further determine whether and how adolescents make meaning around each component of the proposed model. More research is needed because there tends to be widespread efforts to have students use mobile technology and the Internet in their learning, without regard to whether the online curricula or the technology reproduces white supremacy as with off‐line curricula.
Although anecdotal evidence suggests that crimes involving religious congregations are relatively common, data and research on congregations’ experiences with victimization, fears of victimization, and security preparations is sparse. This research note provides an overview of a new survey of over 1300 congregations that was focused on these issues. In addition to providing an introduction to the data, the note provides a descriptive overview of results with a particular focus on differences across religious traditions. Exterior vandalism is the most common crime experienced, with 19% of respondents reporting such an incident in the past year. Jewish and Muslim congregations report a higher rate of receiving threats and are more likely than respondents overall to report a perception that an experienced crime was hate-motivated. Jewish and Muslim congregations also report a higher level of fear of experiencing violent crimes and, overall, have adopted more security measures compared to respondents overall. The note concludes by outlining directions for future research expanding upon these initial patterns.
Constitutional questions about hate crime laws in the United States were settled in the early 1990s. Yet, critics persist in arguing that the laws punish “improper thinking.” In this context, this article addresses the question of the justification of punishing motivation—or bias—behind hate crimes when the type of expression and the thought behind it used to indicate motivation are largely protected. There has been considerable legal scholarship on this question but little empirical investigation of how supporters of legislation respond to the question. The article draws from in-depth interviews carried out with a purposive sample of “elite” informants in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1999. A key theme that emerged was that alleged greater harms inflicted by hate crimes—over and above the harms inflicted by the same underlying but otherwise motivated crimes—justify greater punishment. A conceptualization is provided of alleged harms involved.
The United States has a historical legacy of oppression and subjugation spanning an array of social locations, including class, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation and others. Contemporary research has documented a growth in themes of prejudice and racism present in popular media, such as the Internet. This study fills a gap in the literature by exploring Internet manifestations of a social group that has been historically organized around an ideology of intolerance, prejudice, and hatred: The Ku Klux Klan. Findings from an intersectional content analysis of KKK Web sites reveal that prejudice exists on multiple axes of hate. Major themes include emphases on white solidarity, the cult of Aryan Christianity, Aryan Klan masculinity and heteronormative nuclear family values. These dimensions intersect to create a complex picture of the Klan’s self-proclaimed social supremacy. Implications regarding the use of the Internet as a vehicle of hate are considered.
Hate crimes undermine tolerance and social inclusion by conveying an “outsider” status of the victim and other group members to the broader community. Yet, limited research considers whether non-victims recognize hate crime incidents when they occur. Using census and survey data for 4,000 residents living in 145 communities, we ask whether local residents “see” hate crime when it happens in their neighborhood and whether the neighborhood context influences the association between residents’ perceptions of hate crime and self-reported hate victimization. We find that residents’ perceptions are positively related to victim self-reports; however, this relationship weakens in ethnically diverse and disadvantaged areas. This suggests that residents’ perceptions of hate crime may be more dependent upon the community context than non-hate crimes.
Existing literature demonstrates disagreement over the relationship between hate crime and terrorism with some calling them “close cousins,” whereas others declare them “distant relatives.” We extend previous research by capturing a middle ground between hate crime and terrorism: extremist hate crime. We conduct negative binomial regressions to examine hate crime by non-extremists, fatal hate crime by far-rightists, and terrorism in U.S. counties (1992-2012). Results show that counties experiencing increases in general hate crime, far-right hate crime, and non-right-wing terrorism see associated increases in far-right hate crime, far-right terrorism, and far-right hate crime, respectively. We conclude that hate crime and terrorism may be more akin to close cousins than distant relatives.
Anti-Muslim hate crime is usually viewed in the prism of physical attacks; however, it also occurs in a cyber context, and
this reality has considerable consequences for victims. In seeking to help improve our understanding of anti-Muslim hate crime,
this article draws on the findings from a project that involved qualitative interviews with Muslim men and women who experienced
both virtual and physical world anti-Muslim hate, and reported their experiences to the British government-funded service
Tell Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks. In doing so, this article sets out the first ever study to examine the nature, determinants
and impacts of both virtual and physical world anti-Muslim hate crime upon Muslim men and women in the United Kingdom. Correspondingly,
we found that victims of both virtual and physical world anti-Muslim hate crime are likely to suffer from emotional stress,
anxiety and fear of cyber threats materializing in the ‘real world’.
This article examines the symbolic function of hate crime law. By challenging the norms that sustain and promote prejudice, hate crime law seeks to contribute to claims for social justice on behalf of victim groups. This symbolic function cannot be achieved by legal rules alone. Drawing upon theories of emotional thinking, the article argues that the moral work of hate crime laws is dependent upon the capacity of victim groups to engender compassionate thinking that helps reconfigure perceptions of them as dangerous, illegitimate or inferior Others. This analysis seeks to contribute to our understanding of the processes through which some minority communities fall short of the image of ideal victims capable of contributing to the moral claim embedded in hate crime law.
