Hate Crime Victimization in Germany and the USA

• In Event: The Increased Risk of Victimization in Immigrant and LGBQT Communities

Abstract

Hate crimes are criminal offenses partly or entirely motivated by the fact or perception that a victim is different from the perpetrator. Victims of such crimes suffer especially because they feel a lack control over the characteristics that motivated their victimization and thus feel particularly vulnerable to future bias-motivated attacks. Given the relatively large influx of refugees from African and Middle Eastern areas, and the parallel rise in anti-immigrant attitudes, race and ethnicity based hate crime victimization is increasingly becoming an issue for Germany. Unfortunately, there was no data on hate crime victimizations in Germany available prior to 2017. This research is therefore based on the very first systematic federal-state-level victim survey in Germany that comprehensively takes hate crime victimization into account. This presentation will introduce the survey methodology, compare specific manifestations of the phenomenon, its extent, reactions by the police, as well as psychological and physical consequences for German victims to US research findings. The analyses juxtapose results of the NCVS for the US with results of the German survey conducted by the State Police of Lower Saxony in 2017. The survey was mailed to 40,000 citizens of that state in Germany with a response rate over 50%.

Authors

• Eva Maria Groß, State Office for Criminal Investigation of Lower Saxony, Criminological Research and Statistics

• Alexander Wagner, Fisher College