Measuring Attitudes About Hate: Development of the Hate Crime Beliefs Scale

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (23) ◽  
pp. 3656-3685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mollimichelle K. Cabeldue ◽  
Robert J. Cramer ◽  
Andre Kehn ◽  
James W. Crosby ◽  
Jeffrey S. Anastasi
Keyword(s):  
Attribution Theory ◽  
Hate Crime ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Victim Blame ◽  
Blame Attribution ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Hate Crime Legislation ◽  
Prevention Act ◽  
Sentencing Recommendations ◽  
Crime Legislation

Employing the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) of 2009 and other such legislation as a backdrop, the present study evaluated the nature of beliefs about hate-crime legislation, offenders, and victims. In addition, it investigated construct validity (i.e., political beliefs and prejudice) and predictive validity (i.e., blame attribution and sentencing recommendations). A total of 403 U.S. adults completed measures of prejudice and an initial pool of 50 items forming the proposed Hate Crime Beliefs Scale (HCBS). Participants were randomly assigned to read one of four hate-crime vignettes, which varied in regard to type of prejudice (racial-, sexual orientation-, transgender-, and religion-based prejudices) and then responded to blame and sentencing questions. Factor analyses of the HCBS resulted in four sub-scales: Negative Views (i.e., higher scores reflect negative views of legislation and minority group protection), Offender Punishment (i.e., higher scores suggest endorsement of greater punishment), Deterrence (i.e., greater scores denote support for hate-crime legislation as a deterrent of more violence), and Victim Harm (i.e., higher scores reflect pro-victim attitudes). Greater pro-legislation and pro-victim beliefs were related to liberal political beliefs and less prejudicial attitudes, with some exceptions. Controlling for a number of demographic, situational, and attitudinal covariates, the Negative Views sub-scale displayed predictive utility, such that more negative views of legislation/minority group protection were associated with elevated victim blame, as well as lower perpetrator blame and sentencing recommendations. Results are discussed in the context of hate-crime research and policy, with additional implications considered for trial strategy, modern prejudice, and blame attribution theory.

Formulating the legislative structure of a hate crime

2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Schweppe
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Hate Crime ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Hate Crime Legislation ◽  
Reform Processes ◽  
Crime Legislation ◽  
Legislative Structure ◽  
Statutory Basis

While hate crime legislation is well established in England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, Ireland has failed to address the issue of hate crime on a statutory basis. Law reform processes are currently underway across these jurisdictions, and this article seeks to explore a fundamental question in this context, that is, the relative merits of various approaches to structuring hate crime legislation.

The influence of the ‘gay-propaganda’ law on violence against LGBTIQ people in Russia: Evidence from criminal court rulings

2019 ◽  
pp. 147737081988751
Author(s):  
Alexander Kondakov
Keyword(s):  
Hate Crime ◽  
Hate Crimes ◽  
Original Method ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Actual Number ◽  
Hate Crime Legislation ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Crime Legislation ◽  
Descriptive Statistical Analysis

This article presents the results of a study of the victimization of queer people in Russia before and after the ‘gay-propaganda’ bill was signed into law in 2013. Despite the development of hate crime legislation, few violent incidents against LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and questioning) individuals are recorded in the Russian legal system. An original method of court rulings analysis is put forward in order to move towards an actual number of criminal offences against these groups. All court decisions that mention non-heterosexual victims are reviewed to identify whether these cases could have been considered hate crimes. As a result, 267 first-instance criminal court rulings dealing with 297 LGBTIQ victims are identified in 2011–16. Descriptive statistical analysis demonstrates that the number of victims grew substantially after 2013.

Terrorism and Hate Crime

Criminology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen E. Mills ◽  
Joshua Freilich ◽  
Steven Chermak
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Hate Crime ◽  
The United States ◽  
Hate Crimes ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Hate Crime Legislation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Crime Legislation ◽  
Political Objective

This article focuses on political crimes, specifically terrorism and hate crime. Both terrorism and hate crime are criminal activities that are often committed to further a political objective, as opposed to typical or regular crimes that are usually committed for personal reasons such as greed, revenge, or other personal motivations. Political motivations encompass ideological, social, and religious objectives. Several works (e.g., Bruce Hoffman’s Inside Terrorism; see Hoffman 2006, cited under Defining Terrorism and Hate Crime) examine the evolution of terrorism from ancient to modern times. While bias-motivated violence and hate crimes are just as old as terrorism, the United States did not formally adopt hate crime legislation, through the passage of a variety of substantive penalty enhancement and data collection laws, until the late 20th century. Making Hate a Crime (Jenness and Grattet 2004, cited under Defining Terrorism and Hate Crime) explores the history of hate crime legislation, highlighting how various civil rights and victims’ rights movements played a role in the passage of hate crime legislation. In the classic text Hate Crimes Revisited, Jack Levin and Jack McDevitt outline the history of hate crimes, explain why some persons are motivated to commit these crimes, and discuss efforts to combat them (Levin and McDevitt 2002, cited under Defining Terrorism and Hate Crime).

Hate Crime Policy in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Osterbur
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Hate Crime ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Crime Policy ◽  
Police Powers ◽  
Prevention Act ◽  
Crime Legislation ◽  
Hate Crime Laws

Hate crime policy has developed from the early legislation of the 1968 Civil Rights Act to the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act, to be increasingly inclusive in terms of identity and comprehensive in terms of ramifications. Hence a body of scholarship around the trajectory and implications of hate crime laws has developed, as has a robust discourse on the definitions of hate crime itself and theories on who perpetrates bias-motivated violence and why it occurs. Between definitions of hate crime, a tension exists between legal definitions and those of theorists who are attempting incorporate understanding of context into the definition. Similarly, the theories on who perpetrates hate crimes and why they occur exhibit tensions between strain-based theories. While some scholars have deployed Merton’s (1938) strain theory associated with societal anomie, others point to changing norms. As hate crime laws have become more inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, avenues of research into the disparities in experience of bias-motivated crimes between enumerated categories has increased. Persistent in the research on hate crime is the deficiency of data on victimization and ramifications beyond direct victims. While data on the scope of the policies is clear, inconsistencies in data collection around victimization render available resources insufficient. Most recently, research on hate crime policy has intersected with queer theory to question whether hate crime laws are positive for the LGBTQ community or society at large. Organizations such as the Silvia Rivera Law Project, for example, have pushed back on calls for inclusive hate crime laws via challenging the propensity to provide additional resources to the prison-industrial complex. Furthermore, queer scholars of history find a disconnect between the origins of the LGBTI movement in resisting police powers to be antithetical to promoting increased police powers in the form of hate crime legislation.

Conceptualising ‘racism’ in criminal law

Legal Studies ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kay Goodall
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Hate Crime ◽  
Conceptual Models ◽  
Insufficient Attention ◽  
Lay Perceptions ◽  
Hate Crime Legislation ◽  
Perceptions Of Racism ◽  
Crime Legislation ◽  
Intense Debate

‘Hate’ crime has attracted intense debate, but surprisingly little has been written on how best to draft and interpret hate crime legislation. The dominant conceptual models derive from US scholarship. Although valuable, they pay insufficient attention to principles of criminal law and to how hate crime law is perceived. This paper explores these problems through a discussion of legal approaches to, and lay perceptions of, racism, as embodied in the racially aggravated offence. It proposes a model which offers a more just alternative.

The Specters of Citizenship

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy L. Brandzel
Keyword(s):  
Hate Crime ◽  
Hate Crimes ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Police Brutality ◽  
Structural Level ◽  
Hate Crime Legislation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Crime Legislation ◽  
Social Level

This chapter examines the violent maintenance of citizenship through the police state, and the uses of hate crime legislation to both name and disallow any recognition of this violence. The intervention into how we understand citizenship to be violently organized functions at two interconnected levels, that is, at the structural level of state violence, and at the social level of identity categories. At the level of the state, hate crime legislation offers us important information on how the violence of citizenship is managed, controlled, and directed. At the structural level of the state, the chapter adds to left critiques of hate crime legislation by unpacking how these laws are used to create a dangerous discontinuum, in which hate crimes are marked as individualized errors, while police brutality is systemically assuaged. By examining the machinations of hate crime legislation at these two levels, it is argued that hate crime legislation works, simultaneously, to recognize and deny: (1) the violence of citizenship; and (2) the fear that the oppressed will seek revenge and retaliate for this experience by using violence themselves.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document