Polygraph Tests, Surveillance Cameras, and Reward Money: Racist Hate Crimes, Victimization, and the University as a Carceral Institution

• In Event: Roundtable: Racist Hate Crimes on Campus and the University as a Carceral Institution

Abstract

The number of campus hate crimes have been rising in recent years, with incidents motivated by anti-Black bias showing the greatest increases. This paper explores the university as a carceral institution, using the response to a series of racial hate crimes on one campus in Massachusetts as a case study. Calls for increased surveillance and expanded police investigation techniques are analyzed, including claims of FBI involvement and the use of polygraph tests on potential witnesses. The overlapping tension victimization of students targeted by the hate crime and re-victimization by university police response is also explored, especially given the partial support of these tactics by the former group of victims.

Author

• Elizbeth Whalley, Framingham State University