What Is Hate Crime?
“Hate crime” and “bias crime” are terms that were coined during the 1980s to describe criminal behavior motivated by bigotry. They represent the most recent development toward understanding and eradicating offenses committed out of animosity for members of a particular group. “Bias” more accurately reflects the notion that an offense is committed out of animus for a group with certain attributes, whereas the connotation of “hate” suggests anger at a particular person for reasons particular to that individual. However, given that “hate crime” has become more popularly associated with the phenomenon, that term will be used herein.
Definitions of hate crime can vary widely. The Anti-Defamation League (2005) defines a hate crime as ”a criminal act against a person or property in which the perpetrator chooses the victim because of the victim’s real or perceived race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability or gender.” The Prejudice Institute (2005) includes a broader set of behaviors in what they label “ethnoviolence.” This ”is an act or an attempted act which is motivated by group prejudice and intended to cause physical or psychological injury. These violent acts include intimidation, harassment, group insults, property defacement or destruction, and physical attacks. The targets of these acts involve persons identified because of their race or skin color, gender, nationality or national origin, religion, or other physical or social characteristic of groups such as sexual orientation.”
Hate crime statutes differ from these behaviorally based definitions since they need to cover specific legal situations. They also differ significantly by state, although most statutes share a few broad commonalities. As Jenness (2001) describes, the ”canon” of hate crime laws addresses three issues. It provides for state action, contains a subjective standard to interpret the intent of the offender, and specifies a list of protected status characteristics (race, sexual orientation, disability, and so forth) (Jenness 2001).
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is responsible for collecting data on hate crimes reported to law enforcement agencies in the United States, defines hate crimes as “criminal offenses that are motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or disability, and committed against persons, property, or society” (1999). Some other definitions expressly state that the characteristics motivating the offenders may be falsely perceived and that the victims may be targeted for reasons other than their own characteristics (for example, their association with members of a particular group). However, the FBI’s definition makes this unnecessary by focusing specifically on the offender’s bias against a particular protected group—not the victim’s status. Definitions of hate crime have not typically addressed the goals of the perpetrators (Boeckmann and Turpin-Petrosino 2002), attending only broadly to their motivation.
The two defining elements of hate crime are the interchangeability of victims and the potential for secondary victimization (McDevitt et al. 2001). Victims of hate crime are singled out because of characteristics shared with a particular group; it is these shared (or perceived) characteristics rather than something unique to the individual that make someone a target. Hate crimes are often committed with the purpose of “sending a message” to other members of that group. Part of what makes hate crime particularly egregious is that, because one’s immutable characteristics make one a target, victims cannot protect themselves from future victimization as readily as victims of non-bias crimes sometimes can.
It is important to recognize that hate crime statutes do not criminalize thoughts, beliefs, or legal forms of expression. Rather, depending on the statute, they (1) establish an additional category of offense specifying that an existing criminal act was committed out of bias or (2) permit a sentencing enhancement for existing criminal offenses that can be shown to have been committed based in part on bias against a particular group. Although crimes motivated by such bias, bigotry, or prejudice pervade human history, only during the past three decades has this behavior been defined and constructed as a social problem that may be combated through public policy and legislation.
Who Are the Victims of Hate Crime?
In Hate Crime Statistics, 2003, the FBI reports that 9,100 individuals were victimized in 7,489 incidents of reported hate crimes. Approximately half of the offenses were motivated by racial bias. Of this group, two-thirds (66%) were motivated by an anti-black bias. Of the other third, more than 21% were motivated by anti-white bias, 6% were motivated by anti-Asian/Pacific Islander bias, 2% were motivated by anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native bias, and almost 5% were committed against targeted groups of individuals with more than one race represented.
Religious and sexual orientation bias each motivated more than 16% of hate crimes committed. Of the religiously motivated crimes, 69% were anti-Jewish, 11% were anti-Islamic, 8% targeted individuals perceived to be from other religious groups not specified by the reporting agency, almost 6% were anti-Catholic, almost 4% were anti-Protestant, 2% were against groups of varying religions, and 1% were antiatheist/agnostic. Of those victimized because of their sexual orientation, 62% were targets of anti-male homosexual bias, 21% were targets of antihomosexual bias, both male and female, 16% were targets of anti-female homosexual bias, 1% were targets of antiheterosexual bias, and almost 1% were targets of antibisexual bias.
Of the 1,326 victims of hate crimes committed because of people’s ethnicity or national origin, 45% were targets of anti-Hispanic bias, and 55% were victims of other biases.
Who Are the Perpetrators of Hate Crime?
There were 6,934 ”known offenders” in 2003. According to Hate Crime Statistics, 2003, ”the term known offender does not imply that the suspect’s identity is known but that an attribute of the suspect is identified which distinguishes him or her from an unknown offender.” Race is the only offender attribute collected. Of these known offenders, 62% were white, 19% were black, groups of individuals of varying races accounted for 6%, more than 1% were Asian/Pacific Islander, and almost 1% was American Indian/Alaskan Native.
What Types of Crime Are Reported as Hate Crimes?
In 2003, agencies reported a total of 5,517 victims of crimes against persons and 3,524 victims of crimes against property. Of the crimes against persons, 50% of victims were targets of intimidation, 33% were targets of simple assault, 17% were targets of aggravated assault, and less than 1% targets of murder or rape. Of property crime victims, 83% were targets of acts of destruction, damage, or vandalism, more than 5% of burglary, more than 5% of larceny-theft, more than 4% of robbery, and more than 1% of arson.
Where Does Hate Crime Occur?
The 2003 report states that approximately one-third (32%) of reported hate crimes occurred in or near residences or homes, 18% took place on highways, roads, alleys, or streets, 12% were committed at schools or colleges, 6% occurred in a parking lot or garage, and 4% took place at a church, synagogue, or temple.
What Are the Effects of Hate Crimes?
While there is a substantial body of research showing the negative psychological effects of chronic discrimination (Dunbar 2001), little systematic research has been conducted on the effects of hate crime on its victims as compared to individuals similarly victimized but without experiencing an element of bias. Critics of hate crime legislation claim that the motivation of the offender does not cause additional injury, while victim advocates have long argued that the consequences of hate crimes can be considerably more detrimental than those of the same offense without the bias element. What research does exist appears to lend support to the contention that hate crimes are more destructive than offenses lacking a bias motivation.
Comparison studies in which victims of hate and non-hate crimes are surveyed show that hate crime victims indicate a greater number of symptoms and behavior change (Ehrlich et al. 1994; Barnes and Ephross 1994; and Herek et al. 1999, as discussed in McDevitt et al. 2001). In McDevitt et al. (2001), a mail survey was sent to all victims of bias-motivated aggravated assault in Boston over five years and a random sample of non-bias assault victims over the same time period. Results showed significantly greater consequences for hate crime victims in the aftermath of the victimization. There was little difference between groups in terms of behavior change following incidents, which the authors suggested reflects the notion that victims are chosen because of their immutable characteristics and cannot avoid future victimization through changes in their own actions. However, the study showed differential psychological impact, with hate crime victims showing a greater tendency to feel angry, nervous, and depressed, have greater trouble concentrating, and feel like not wanting to live any longer when compared to the sample of non-bias assault victims.
Why Do People Commit Hate Crimes?
Although many theories have been offered, it is not yet clear why people commit crimes based on hatred of a particular group. Unresolved methodological issues have prevented widespread and rigorous study of the causes of hate crime. These relate to the inclusiveness of hate crime legislation, the etiology of hate crime, and data collection limitations.
Issues of Definition
There is no agreement as to how inclusive a definition of hate crime should be. Some state laws are written very broadly to include a victim targeted for membership in any group whatsoever; others are very limited in their scope, such as those of Indiana and South Carolina, which apply only to acts of institutional vandalism (Anti-Defamation League 2005).
All-inclusive statutes can be problematic for research purposes if the specific circumstances and group affiliations are not recorded. Since offender motivations and tactics (as well as hate crime prevention and response strategies) will differ for a white-on-black attack as opposed to a black-on-white attack, this information is extremely important.
Whether to include gender as a protected group is also controversial. If any attack against a woman is considered a hate crime if the crime was motivated primarily because of gender, should all sexual assaults against women be counted as hate crimes? If so, should acquaintance rapes and domestic violence be excluded, since the victim is not interchangeable? Some of the more than twenty-five states that include gender in their hate crime laws have tried to answer these questions with limited success. For example, the Massachusetts attorney general requires at least two previous restraining orders issued to protect two different domestic partners for an individual to be prosecuted under the hate crime statute. During the policy’s first ten years, fewer than ten cases met these criteria. California law requires an articulated threat by the offender against women in general. It is unrealistic to expect such an utterance during most offenses (Levin and McDevitt 2002, 21-22).
Issues of Etiology
As a result, it is not surprising that little systematic study has been done on the causes of hate crime. To date, more research has concentrated on descriptive elements of hate crime rather than investigations into its causes. This research lacks an explanatory or predictive theory, and there is little or no evaluation research to guide its development. Such a theoretical base would be valuable to provide a useful framework for criminal justice practitioners, social service organizations, and other government agencies (Shively 2005).
In their critique of the state of hate crime research, Green, McFalls, and Smith (2001) argue that theories attempting to explain the etiology of hate crime ”must distinguish between two broad levels of analysis: individual and societal” (Green, McFalls, and Smith 2001). Factors at the individual level include psychological orientations, while causes at the societal level attend to social forces such as integration and changes in the economy. The authors note that these categories are blended to some degree and that there are six general types of explanations for hate crime in the literature: psychological, social-psychological, historical-cultural, sociological, economic, and political.
Thus far, there is little support for theories speculating that economic downturns and unemployment rates are responsible for increased levels of hate crime. However, several studies have found in-migration to be positively correlated with hate crime incidence (Green, McFalls, and Smith 2001), and particular events such as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, are likely motivators for bias crime. According to Shively (2005), there was a seventeen-fold increase from 2000 to 2001 for crimes motivated by anti-Islamic bias.
Issues of Data Collection
Although the U.S. government is required to collect data on hate crimes, state participation in the collection effort is voluntary, which has resulted in several thousand agencies electing not to participate. Additionally, McDevitt et al. (2000) have shown that of the nearly twelve thousand law enforcement agencies participating in the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Hate Crime Reporting Program, nearly 83% reported zero hate crimes in 1996 (McDevitt et al. 2000). Complicating matters further, 37% of agencies that didn’t participate or that reported zero incidents in 1997 believed their departments had investigated at least one hate crime incident. To understand the reasons for these phenomena, McDevitt et al. examined the hate crime reporting process and the barriers to obtaining accurate data. These barriers are broken down into two groups: individual (victim) inhibitors and police disincentives. The former refers to such obstacles as not recognizing that a hate crime has been committed, feeling the incident was not serious enough to report, and mistrust of the police. Police disincentives include failing to recognize the commission of a hate crime, putting a low agency priority on taking hate crime reports, and lacking formal policies on the reporting of hate crimes.
The authors state (p. 134) that improving the national documentation of hate crimes “requires a broad-based strategy that addresses four overarching areas: (1) building trust between members of the minority community and their local police, (2) improving law enforcement’s ability to respond to victims who do come forward to report bias crimes, (3) making the national data more ‘user friendly’ for local law enforcement purposes, and (4) using supplemental data to both shed light on the level of unreported hate crime and promote community collaboration.”
A few studies have systematically investigated the motivations of hate crime offenders. Levin and McDevitt (2002) and Levin, McDevitt, and Bennett (2002) have offered a typology of perpetrators based on their motivations. The support for this framework comes from data on hate crimes reported to the Boston Police Department during an eighteen-month period in the early 1990s. The typology includes the following motivations for offenders:
1. Thrill seekers, who constitute about two-thirds of offenders, have little commitment to bias per se. Although the underlying factor is bigotry, thrill seeking offenders appear to be motivated by the desire for excitement or for peer acceptance.
2. Defensive offenders view members of a group as unfairly using up the offender’s groups resources, such as when a minority member moves into a previously all-white neighborhood.
3. Retaliatory incidents are carried out when the offender reacts to a real or perceived hate crime on his or her group by attacking someone from the group of the first perpetrator.
4. Offenders on a mission have often joined hate groups and make it their mission in life to rid the world of groups they consider evil or inferior.
The typology also provides useful investigative information. For example, while nine out of ten thrill seeking offenders in the study reportedly left their own neighborhood in search of a victim, defensive offenders tend to attack victims within the offenders’ own neighborhoods. The typology is currently being used by the FBI and in other national training curricula.
How Is Hate Crime Addressed in the Law?
In 1979, Massachusetts became the first state to enact modern legislation targeting hate crime. The Massachusetts Civil Rights Act did not include particular protected status groups but was aggressively enforced with the interpretation that it covered crimes based on religious or racial characteristics. By 1985, another seven states (Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Washington) had passed laws punishing individuals who committed offenses because of race, ethnicity/national origin, and religion (Levin 2002). By 1991, twenty-eight states had passed hate crime laws; by 2000, forty-one had.
In the past decade, hate crime laws have been institutionalized federally and in more than 80% of the states. During the 1990s, the federal government introduced four pieces of hate crime legislation. The Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) was passed in 1990 and requires the attorney general to collect data on crimes motivated by race, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity for five years. Responsibility for collecting hate crime data was given to the director of the FBI, who assigned the task to the UCR program. HCSA did not criminalize any behavior, and it neither provided funding for localities to collect data nor required them to submit data. However, training provided to local law enforcement by the FBI in order to increase reporting did much to sensitize many agencies to the importance of hate crimes.
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 added disability, both physical and mental, to the list of protected constituencies. Also passed in 1994, the Hate Crime Sentencing Act increases by about 30% the sentence for underlying violations of federally protected activities in which the victim is intentionally chosen because of his or her race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. The Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996 expands the list of federally protected activities to cover religious worship and increased penalties for the arson of churches. It also makes the collection of hate crime data, originally mandated for five years following passage of the HCSA, a permanent feature of the UCR.
Originally introduced in 1998, the Hate Crime Prevention Act would extend federal protection on the basis of gender, disability, and sexual orientation, but in cases of interstate commerce only, and would broaden the current protected circumstances that require a victim to have been attacked both because of his or her status and in the exercise of a specific activity protected by the list of federally protected activities. Despite support in the Senate, the bill has not successfully made it to the floor of the House for a vote.
Hate crime legislation is criticized by some for what they view as criminalizing thoughts and beliefs in violation of the First Amendment. Indeed, in R.A.V. v. St. Paul (1992), the Supreme Court ”invalidated those hate crime laws in which the criminality of a particular act hinged solely on the idea expressed through the use of a particular symbol” (Levin 2002) (in this case, cross burning). The Court has, however, upheld hate crime legislation that takes into account an offender’s biased intent during sentencing for an underlying offense. In Wisconsin v. Mitchell in 1993, the Court determined that the penalty enhancement for choosing an assault victim because of his race was constitutional because the state law did not prevent anyone’s free expression, that motivation has traditionally been one of the factors used in determining sentences and the Constitution does not bar admitting the offender’s beliefs at sentencing, and that the severity of the effect of hate crimes warrants its use as an aggravating factor in making sentencing decisions. Legislation often specifies that this extra penalty can be served only after the original sentence, guaranteeing its function as a true enhancement.
What Is the Main Critique of Hate Crime Law?
As mentioned above, some critics have argued that federal hate crime legislation is a step toward criminalizing unpopular beliefs. This is not, however, the only criticism of the concept of hate crime. In Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics, James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter (1998) offer a critique of the major justifications for hate crime legislation. In addition to this analysis, which is discussed below, critics have also addressed several issues concerning hate crime legislation that deal with the feasibility of enforcing hate crime laws, poorly written laws, and laws that ultimately function as unfunded mandates (Jacobs and Potter 1998; Shively 2005). We do not discuss these concerns here because, while they may reflect important considerations, they address implementation rather than substantive issues relating to the concept of hate crime legislation per se.
To begin with, Jacobs and Potter (1998) argue that although they do not object in principle to correlating punishment and motive, they question whether prejudice is any worse a motive than, for example, ”greed, power, lust, spite, desire to dominate, and pure sadism” (p. 80). They also ask whether there is not an argument to be made that hate criminals are less culpable due to early indoctrination by parents and peers. The evidence, they state, does not support the notion that bias-motivated assaults tend to be excessively brutal or somehow worse than non-bias assaults, which already are governed by a severity continuum when it comes to sentencing. In terms of psychological injury, the authors point to a lack of comparison groups of non-hate crime victims in studies of the deleterious effects of hate crimes on victims. They note the existence of one study that found less severe injury in victims of hate crimes versus non-hate crimes.
In response to claims that hate crimes impact innocent third parties in addition to the primary victim, Jacobs and Potter argue that other non-bias crimes, such as murder, rape, child abduction, carjacking, and subway crime, similarly can elicit fear in the broader community. On the other hand, they say, hate crimes that include such low-level offenses as vandalism do not spread terror.
In response to the critique of Jacobs and Potter, many researchers and advocates have pointed out that historically we have always considered the status of the victim (for example, children or elderly) and the impact on the community in assessing punishment for a crime. Hate crime legislation follows this standard but expands the values being safeguarded from age and potential vulnerability to the increasing diversity of our society.
Hate Groups
Hate groups have been defined as ”any organized group whose beliefs and actions are rooted in enmity toward an entire class of people based on ethnicity, perceived race, sexual orientations, religion, or other inherent characteristic” (Woolf and Hulsizer 2004). According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were 762 active hate groups in the United States during 2004, including black separatists, Christian identity, Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederacy, neo-Nazi, and racist skinhead groups in addition to other groups representing other biased doctrines. ”Active” refers to criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting, or publishing (Southern Poverty Law Center 2006).
Interestingly, there is evidence showing that most hate crimes committed in the United States are not committed by individuals who are part of hate groups. This is not to say that hate groups aren’t harmful. For one thing, they help perpetuate prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination and prompt other members of society to violent acts. Teenagers and young adults, predominately males, are particularly susceptible to hate groups’ messages regardless of whether they are actual members (Woolf and Hulsizer 2004). Additionally, acts of domestic terrorism are typically perpetrated by individuals associated with hate groups (for example, Timothy McVeigh and Terry McNichols were connected with right-wing militia and Christian identity groups).
The members of organized hate groups have broadened the meaning of the term ”defense” to include aggressive behavior attacking innocent victims. For example, in a recent issue of the White Aryan Resistance (WAR) newsletter, the group’s leader asserts ”We have every right to use force in self-defense, in retaliation, and in preemptive strikes against those who openly threaten our freedom.” Thus, no pretext of a precipitating event is necessary; the very presence of members of a particular group may be considered sufficient to call for a group response (Levin and McDevitt 2002, 101).
The advent of the Internet has, unfortunately, widely broadened the reach of hate groups. There are hundreds of websites operated by various hate groups. This enables hate groups to communicate with a potentially enormous audience, including children, and makes it possible to sell wares (for example, ”white power” music) that would not be permitted in mainstream stores.
In the little research that has been done to systematically measure the impact of the organized hate groups, it appears that their effect is greater through their messaging than their individual actions. In those jurisdictions that measure hate group involvement by the offenders in hate crimes, they find that generally less than 10% of the hate crimes committed in a jurisdiction are committed by members of a hate or bias group. It does appear to be the case, though, that a much larger number of hate crime offenders have seen hate group literature or logged on to a hate group website.
Hate Crime Prevention
There are two options for addressing the commission of hate crimes: prevention and rehabilitation. The former seeks to increase awareness of the consequences and to stop hate crime before it occurs, while the latter strives to deter an offender from committing future hate crimes. There are several strong prevention programs offered in the United States, some of which are directed at schoolteachers. Some examples follow:
• World of Difference program. Sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, it has trained more than three hundred thousand teachers in the skills necessary to identify and combat acts motivated by hate in their schools.
• Teaching Tolerance program. Offered by the Southern Poverty Law Center, it has trained thousands of teachers to foster equity, respect, and understanding inside and outside the classroom.
• Facing History and Ourselves. Aimed at middle and high school history and social studies teachers, this curriculum uses the Holocaust to teach about the dangers of bigotry and emphasizes the positive and negative roles bystanders can play in hate crimes.
Hate crime rehabilitation programs for offenders face many obstacles. However, Levin and McDevitt (2002) argue that model programs should include the following elements:
• Assessment of the offenders
• Discussion of impact on victims
• Cultural awareness
• Restitution/community service
• Delineation of legal consequences
• Participation in a major cultural event
• Aftercare
Conclusion
While much debate involves the exact role the law and the criminal justice system should play in violence motivated by bias or hatred, there is little debate that a number of crimes are committed annually on the basis of victims’ races, ethnicities, or other group characteristics. In a society that is becoming increasingly diverse, history informs us that as diversity increases, interpersonal tensions and all too often violence follow. Hate crime laws and the response to these crimes by the police, courts, and, most important, members of our communities will be increasingly important in helping our society to grow and to respect the contributions and dignity of all its members.
