Poster #88 - Examining Theoretical Explanations of Hate Crimes

• In Event: ASC Poster Session II

Abstract

Hate crimes are offenses motivated by bias against a victim’s perceived or actual race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexuality, or disability. The physical actions involved in hate crimes resemble “normal” crimes, often involving assault, intimidation, and/or vandalism, and these offenses bring the harms associated with “normal” offenses (e.g., violence, property damage, fear). However, the bias-motivated element of hate crimes makes them especially harmful, as they also make people who are similar to the victims fear their own potential victimization. Federal crime data indicate that an average of over 6700 hate crimes have occurred within the United States each year since 2010, with countless others likely going unreported.

This project accomplishes four goals. It overviews trends in hate crime statistics, including frequency over time and offender, victim, offense, motivation, and situational characteristics. It discusses definitional issues surrounding these offenses, such as ambiguities and jurisdictional variations. It examines theoretical explanations of the causes and distribution of hate crimes, including various micro-level and macro-level theories. Finally, it suggests taking an integrated theoretical approach and considers how this approach could be studied empirically.

Author

• Christopher Allen Forepaugh, University of Nevada, Las Vegas