Understanding Hate Crimes in the Canadian Context: Exploring the Role of Offense Collaboration and Use of Violence in Hate Crime Incidents

• In Event: Preventing and investigating hate crimes

Abstract

Many areas of Canada, as well as globally, are experiencing increases in hate crimes. To date, there has been a lack of studies empirically examining hate crime in the Canadian context. Statistics Canada has recently released the Hate Crime Police Incident Profiles (HCPIP) dataset that has been created through the Canadian-Sweden Research Collaboration on Organized Violent Threats. This dataset includes incident and individual-level information on police-reported hate crimes in Canada between 2011 and 2018. A series of logistic regression models were conducted, and significant differences were found between incident characteristics perpetrated by violent and non-violent hate crime perpetrators, as well as between offences perpetrated alone compared to offences with co-offenders. This study provides insight that can inform official responses and strategies intended to target the growing threat of hate-motivated offences and form a comparative basis for cross-national studies.

Authors

• Sara Doering, Simon Fraser University

• Garth Davies, Simon Fraser University