Lecture Four : Hate crime

Question 1

Where has the term ‘hate crime come from’?

Answer 1

• Originated in the US thought the social movements in the 1960s
• In the UK it has emerged from a number of high profile incidents eg. Murder of Stephen Lawrence
• The hate crime agenda has also gained traction alongside the increasing role of the victim in the criminal justice system

Question 2

What are the 5 different types of hate crime?

Answer 2

1. Religious
2. Racist
3. Homophobic
4. Transphobic
5. Disabilist

–> other categories of hate crime are recognised, such as misogynistic hate crime and hate crime against sex workers

Question 3

What are the three main academic discussions surrounding the definition of ‘Hate Crimes?’

Answer 3

1. Hate crime is a social construct (Jacobs and Potter 1998)
2. Hate crimes are crimes motivated by hatred
3. The pivotal characteristics of hate crime is the group affiliation of the victim Gerstenfield (2004)

Question 4

What is a hate incident? (Association of chief police officers 2005)

Answer 4

Any incident which may or may not constitute a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person, as being motivated by prejudice or hate

Question 5

What is the definition of a hate crime? (Association of chief Police Officers 2005)

Answer 5

Any hate incident, which consititues a crimminal offence, perceived by the victim or any other person, as being motivated by prejudice or hate

Question 6

What is a racial incident? (Macpherson, 1999: 328)

Answer 6

A racist incident ‘is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person’

Question 7

What two categories does the Association of chief Police Officers split hate crimes into and why?

Answer 7

1. Hate incident
2. Hate Crime

–> This is because hate crime takes a victim centred approach

Question 8

Definition of Hate Crime- Petrosino (2003)

Answer 8

Takes a victim centred approach- the victimisation of minorities due to their racial or ethnic identity by members of the majority

Question 9

Definition of Hate Crime Ray 2011

Answer 9

Emphasis the ‘bias’ element-

• ‘hate crimes refer to crimes in which the victims are chosen because of particular characteristics eg. race, ethnicity, disability, gender, sexuality and religion.
• Therefore these crimes are biassed towards those with characteristics, hence ‘bias crime’

Question 10

Definition of hate crime Sheffield (1995)

Answer 10

Includes the ‘political’ element:

• hate violence is motivated by social and political factors and is bolstered by belief systems which (attempts to) legitimate such violence…
• it reveals that the personal is political; that such violence is not a series of isolated incidents but rather the consequence of a political culture which allocates rights, privileges and prestige according to biological or social characteristics

Question 11

Definition of Hate crime: Perry 2001

Answer 11

considers the impact on the actors–> a tool to restore the dominance and hierarchy

• hate crimes involve acts of violence and intimidation, usually directed toward already stigmatised and marginalised groups. As such, it is a mechanism of power and oppression, intended to reaffirm the precarious hierarchies that characterise a given social order.
• It attempts to re-create simultaneously the threatened (real or imagined) hegemony of the perpetrator’s group and the ‘appropriate’ subordinate identity of the victim’s group. It is a means of marking both the self and the other in such a way as to re-establish their ‘proper’ relative positions, as given and reproduced by broader ideologies and patterns of social and political inequality

Question 12

Definition of Hate crime: Iganski (2008)

Answer 12

proposed that ‘hate crime’ is a concept referring to a policy domain

→ an arena in which elements of the political system and criminal justice process have converged and focused on the substantive issue of offences and incident where some bigotry against the victim plays a part

Question 12

What is the Biological explanation for Hate crime?

Answer 12

1. Amygdala

The amygdala is one of the most primitive part of the brain, although it is superfast
It shows the highest correlation with unconscious prejudice, and is associated with fear and aggression
It is also where prepared fears (fear we learn more quickly) and learned fears are formed

2. Prefrontal cortex
   –> Control amygdala

The case of Mark Duggan: research shows that white shooters’ brain exhibit a weaker prefrontal cortex signal when faced with black vs white suspects (Correll, Urland and Ito, 2006)

3. Hormones: Oxytocin

The work of oxytocin: a hormone produced when human beings fall in love or become pregnant
Oxytocin does not only increase trust and sympathy, but also aggression toward those regarded as ‘others’ (De Dreu et al, 2011)

Question 13

What are the psychological explanation?

Answer 13

Personality:

Right-wing authoritarianism (RWO) and social dominance orientation (SDO) associated with prejudice against outgroups (Asbrock et al 2010; Bergh 2016)
… However, hate crime offenders tend to be versatile (Messner et al 2004)

Question 14

What are the three types of Hegemonic Masculinity identified by Connell (1995)

Answer 14

1. Hegemonic masculinity
2. Complicit masculinity
3. Subordinated masculinity

Question 14

What is the social explanation for Hate Crime?

Answer 14

Group Identity
–> ‘identity fusion (Swann et al 2009)

Integrated Threat Theory (Stephan and Stephan 2000)
–> Real threats: concern for potentially negative material outcomes
–> Symbolic threats: perceived threats to the dominant group’s norms, values or beliefs

Both negative and positive government attention directed towards specific groups can contribute to an increase in hate crime

The perceived loss of majority status among the White American population significantly influences the expression of racial prejudice and attitudes toward demographic change

Question 15

What is the relationship between Masculinity and Homophobia

Answer 15

Based On Connell (1996) Hegemonic Masculinity

→ there are multiple forms of masculinity
→ a type of masculinity enjoys hegemonic status
→ Certain forms of masculinities (being a gay) a subordinated to maintain the patriarchal culture
→ Hate crime= the process of reproducing the hegemony

Kimmel (1994)

Masculinity is fraught from the start due to risk-taking behaviours and competitions
Fear of being discovered as insufficiently masculine is projected into gay men and manifests itself as attack against them

Women are less likely to be involved in violence motivated by sexual orientation bias while more likely to be involved in racially motivated hate crime (Lantz 2022)

Question 16

What are the 4 categories of everyday Hate Crime discovered by McDevitt, Levin and Bennet (2002)

Answer 16

1. Thrill offenders: excitement. Most common are teenagers/young adults in a group looking for a thrill. Often left their local area to look for a victim based on their ‘difference’. 66% of all offenders came from this category. What does this suggest?
2. Defensive offenders: defending territory. 25% of all cases. Again, young offenders → the number of non-english speaker (Benier, Wickes and Higgison, 2016)
3. Mission offenders: they want to eliminate groups who they see as evil or inferior to them. Less than 1% of the sample
4. Retaliatory offenders: revenge offences, offering ‘just desserts’ 8% of the sample goes into another area to retaliate (See also Mills et al 2017; Deloughery, King and Asal 2012)

Question 17

Advantages of McDevitt, Levin and Bennet (2002) Everydayness of Hate Crime:

Answer 17

–> over representation of unemployed among hate crime (Iganski and Smith 2011)

–> Are motivated by thrill (McDevitt et al, 2002)

–> Are ‘versatile’ committing wider range of crime (Messner et al 2004)

Question 18

Disadvantages of McDevitt, Levin and Bennet (2002) Everydayness of Hate Crime:

Answer 18

–> Doesn’t explain why some commit hate crimes while others do not.

–> Doesn’t explain how racism plays out in the minds of offenders.

Question 19

What are the effects of Hate Crime on individuals?

Answer 19

Distinct and/or more significant harm than other victims

–> ‘It is a violation of really a person’s essence… because… you can’t who you (R6, in Iganski, 2002, 628)

Question 20

What are the effects of Hate Crime on the wider society?

Answer 20

Challenges values of tolerance and respect for others

Question 21

What are the effects of Hate Crime on Victims ?

Answer 21

Negative emotional reactions
Feeling upset (71%) anxious (41%) angry (41%) vulnerable (36%)

Depression (24%)
Feeling suicidal (7%) (Chakraborti, Garland and Hardy 2014)

Behavioural changes
Avoid certain places
Concealment of sexual orientation, which increases the fear of crime (Ilse and Hagerlid, 2024)

Proactive behaviours eg, participation in community groups and raise awareness (Paterson et al 2018)

Question 22

What are the 6 different types of Victimisation?

Answer 22

1. Verbal abuse (55%)
2. Harassment (29%)
3. Property crime 13% ,
4. Violent crime 9% ,
5. Cyberbullying 6%
6. Sexual violence 4%

(Chakraborti et al 2014)

Question 23

What is the relationship between between gender gap and hate crimes?

Answer 23

Men were more likely than women to have experienced both verbal abuse and violent hate crime

Question 24

What is the intersectional nature of hate crime and victimisation

Answer 24

• 50% referring to more than one reason: for example, race and their religion (Chakraborti et al 2018)
• Muslim women are disproportionately targeted
• Intersection of different categories, being a woman and religious minority