Hate Crimes and Race-Based Trauma on Latinx Populations: A Critical Review of the Current Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 152483802097968
Author(s):  
Sarah Lockwood ◽  
Carlos A. Cuevas

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.

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 330-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Barry Ruback ◽  
Andrew S. Gladfelter ◽  
Brendan Lantz

Data on the incidence and prevalence of hate crimes in the United States come primarily from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). Although UCR data undercount most crimes, hate crimes are particularly underreported, especially for some groups. We compare 2000–2011 UCR data in Pennsylvania to data from a state agency that came from police, media, and citizen reports. First, we find that the state-agency database is generally consistent with the UCR data, in terms of absolute counts, correlations, and predictors. Second, we find that UCR data underestimate hate crime rates by a factor of about 1.6 overall and by a factor of 2.5 for rural areas. Moreover, although UCR data on hate crimes show a decrease in the most recent 5-year period, the state agency data show that hate crime incident counts have not dropped. We suggest that using a broader index that includes both the UCR and a database like that in Pennsylvania will give a more complete picture of hate crime.


2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Dunbar

This study examined the impact of hate crimes upon gay and lesbian victims, reviewing 1,538 hate crimes committed in Los Angeles County. Differences between sexual orientation and other hate crime categories were considered for offense severity, reportage to law enforcement, and victim impact. The type of offense varied between crimes classified for sexual orientation (n = 551) and other bias-motivated crimes (n = 987). Assault, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and stalking were predictive of sexual orientation hate crimes. Sexual orientation bias crimes evidenced greater severity of violence to the person and impact upon victim level of functioning. More violent forms of aggression were predictive of gay and lesbian victim’s underreportage to law enforcement. For sexual orientation offenses, victim gender and race/ethnicity differences were predictive of the base rates of crime reportage as well. These findings are considered in terms of a group-risk hypothesis, encountered by multiple outgroup persons, that influences help-seeking behavior and ingroup identity.


2020 ◽  
pp. 009385482098384
Author(s):  
Zachary T. Malcom ◽  
Brendan Lantz

Prior research has suggested that hate crimes hurt more, in that they are more physically severe than other crimes. A separate body of research has focused on the role of weapons in exacerbating violence; yet, no research has considered the role of weapon use in bias crime victimization. Following this, this research examines the relationship between weapon use, bias motivation, and victimization in the United States. On one hand, weapons may play an important role in hate crime by exacerbating violence. On the other hand, weapons may be unnecessary for facilitating hate crime violence, given the animus associated with bias motivation. Using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System, we find that bias crimes are both (a) less likely than nonbias crimes to involve weapons and (b) more likely than nonbias crimes to involve serious or lethal victim injury. These patterns are particularly pronounced for antisexual orientation hate crimes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 1034-1055
Author(s):  
Wesley Myers ◽  
Brendan Lantz

Abstract Hate is a global phenomenon as evidenced by recent increases in hate crimes in both the United States and the United Kingdom; unfortunately, these crimes are also substantially underreported in both nations. Following this, this research presents an examination of racially motivated hate crimes and victim reporting to the police in both nations using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey and the Crime Survey of England and Wales from 2003 to 2015. Results indicate that, overall, victim reporting has been increasing in the United Kingdom and decreasing in the United States. Disaggregating by victim and offender race, however, reveals divergent trends such that anti-black hate crime victim reporting is increasing in the United States and decreasing in the United Kingdom. Policy and research implications are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz Coston

This article examines the effects of victim and perpetrator characteristics on the seriousness of anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) and anti-transgender (T) hate crime incidents, as there are limited and contradictory findings regarding characteristics that contribute to anti-LGB(T) hate crimes. This analysis uses a series of χ2 tests to examine the importance of these characteristics using data from the 2003–2013 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and a partial proportional odds model for data from the 2012 Uniform Crime Report (UCR) Hate Crime Data to examine differences in seriousness among LGB and T victims. This study finds that victim characteristics may not impact victimization in the ways suggested by previous studies. Additionally, the importance of offender race is largely impacted by whether the data are self-report data or police data.


2020 ◽  
pp. 155708512095773
Author(s):  
Mika Hagerlid

The overall aim of this study is to fill a knowledge gap regarding misogynistic hate crimes, since only one previous study has focused on victims’ experiences. Drawing from a sample of 1,767 female students, the results show that women with experiences of misogynistic hate crimes are more likely to be subjected to sexual harassment, repeat victimization, and to have been targeted by strangers. They consistently report higher levels of fear of crime by comparison with both non-bias victims and non-victims. Finally, the results support the thesis that misogynistic hate crime, like other forms of hate crime, has a message effect.


2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (32) ◽  
pp. 19072-19079
Author(s):  
N. Pontus Leander ◽  
Jannis Kreienkamp ◽  
Maximilian Agostini ◽  
Wolfgang Stroebe ◽  
Ernestine H. Gordijn ◽  
...  

People may be sympathetic to violent extremism when it serves their own interests. Such support may manifest itself via biased recognition of hate crimes. Psychological surveys were conducted in the wakes of mass shootings in the United States, New Zealand, and the Netherlands (totaln= 2,332), to test whether factors that typically predict endorsement of violent extremism also predict biased hate crime perceptions. Path analyses indicated a consistent pattern of motivated judgment: hate crime perceptions were directly biased by prejudicial attitudes and indirectly biased by an aggrieved sense of disempowerment and White/Christian nationalism. After the shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, disempowerment-fueled anti-Semitism predicted lower perceptions that the gunman was motivated by hatred and prejudice (study 1). After the shootings that occurred at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, disempowerment-fueled Islamoprejudice similarly predicted lower hate crime perceptions (study 2a). Conversely, after the tram shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands (which was perpetrated by a Turkish-born immigrant), disempowerment-fueled Islamoprejudice predicted higher hate crime perceptions (study 2b). Finally, after the Walmart shooting in El Paso, Texas, hate crime perceptions were specifically biased by an ethnonationalist view of Hispanic immigrants as a symbolic (rather than realistic) threat to America; that is, disempowered individuals deemphasized likely hate crimes due to symbolic concerns about cultural supremacy rather than material concerns about jobs or crime (study 3). Altogether, biased hate crime perceptions can be purposive and reveal supremacist sympathies.


Criminology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen E. Mills ◽  
Joshua Freilich ◽  
Steven Chermak

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).


2020 ◽  
pp. 088626052093851
Author(s):  
Mingqi Li ◽  
Edward C. Chang ◽  
Olivia D. Chang

With the growth of positive psychology during the past two decades, increased research has been focused on identifying human virtues that not only foster well-being but also act as positive processes that mitigate the impact of life adversities. Thus, it is useful to examine how positive processes, such as hope, may impact individuals’ psychological adjustment following adversities. This study investigated the relationships among interpersonal violence, hope, as a key human strength, and negative affect conditions in a large sample ( N = 737) of Chinese male and female ( Nfemale = 409) college students. Participants completed measures assessing prior exposure to interpersonal violence, levels of both hope components (i.e., agency and pathways), negative affect, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation. Results from correlational analyses showed that exposure to interpersonal violence was positively and hope was negatively correlated with negative affective conditions. However, hope agency was more strongly correlated with those outcomes than hope pathways. In addition, three separate hierarchical regression analyses indicated that after accounting for demographics (i.e., age and sex) and interpersonal violence, within hope components, only hope agency remained as strong concurrent predictors of negative affective conditions. The present findings in this Chinese sample are consistent with those obtained from Turkey and the United States samples, adding evidence to the more robust role of hope, and hope agency in particular, in predicting negative psychological adjustment associated with interpersonal violence. Efforts made to address the absence of hope agency may be particularly important in future attempts to mitigate negative affective conditions linked to interpersonal violence among Chinese college students.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 1088-1101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Moschella ◽  
Sidney Turner ◽  
Victoria L. Banyard

Sexual assault (SA) and intimate partner violence (IPV) occur at alarming rates in the United States. Prior research indicates that victims of traumatic events frequently experience both positive and negative changes as part of their recovery process. The present study aimed to further existing research by examining the relationship between self-blame, posttraumatic growth (PTG), and happiness when controlling for posttraumatic stress and time since victimization. The current study analyzed 357 women who had experienced at least one incident of SA or IPV. We found that PTG partially mediated the relationship between self-blame and happiness, suggesting that PTG only somewhat explains the impact of self-blame on victim happiness. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.


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