Understanding Hate Crimes

Howard J. Ehrlich

The Associated Press article began “Hate crimes were down sharply in 2002" (the latest report.) This is not the first time that this claim of declining hate crimes has been made. Most likely, it won’t be the last time. While the FBI’s report on hate crimes has been circulating, an even more powerful report has been suppressed. Across the Atlantic , the European Union has refused to release a report of its Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. That report documents an extraordinary new wave of anti-Semitism in EU countries. While we can only speculate about the EU’s motives in not publishing their own report, as long as the government and the public want to delude themselves about the prevalence of hate crimes, its true significance will remain obscured. Acts motivated by prejudice derive from discrimination and lead to oppression. It is important that activists understand the sociology of hate crimes and its related acts such as hate speech and ethnoviolence. Here are my ten points to that understanding.

To begin with about 15 per cent of all police agencies do not report hate crimes. So, of course, they are underreported. Further, most police and prosecutors do not know and have not really been trained, to recognize hate crimes.

Second, for various bureaucratic and, in many cases, bigoted reasons, police and prosecutors do not want to get involved in such arrests and charges. It is not uncommon, for example, for police to charge someone, say, with “vandalism” as opposed to a hate crime.

Third, “hate,” in the dictionary sense of a strong emotional response is often not involved in the commission of a so-called hate crime. In fact, many of the most violent crimes have been committed with cold deliberation by psychopaths who are incapable of strong emotions. Even more, prejudice is not always the primary motivation in an attack on persons or property because of their race, religion, ethnicity, or other group membership. This is not to say that prejudice is absent, rather the motivations for ethnoviolent acts vary and include fear, conformity, loss of control, or even, as the soldiers at the Abu Graib prison grotesquely demonstrated, for recreation.

Fourth, hate crimes, by definition, only refer to a handful of serious crimes: murder, rape, assault, and so on. Repeated harassment or acts of intimidation which do serious psychological, but not physical, damage to the victim are seldom counted as a hate crime. While race, religion, and ethnicity are included in virtually all state statutes, sexual orientation, gender, disability, and age are not included in most hate crime laws.

Fifth, hate crime statistics would make sense if all such crimes and incidents were reported to public authorities. They are not. Social surveys indicate that the majority of prejudice-motivated crimes and incidents are not reported. In workplace settings, as many as half of such events are not reported, while on college campuses as many as 80 percent of students do not report their victimization. The relatively small number of official reports to legal authorities has bolstered the idea that hate crimes and incidents are not seriously prevalent.

The surveys do indicate that every year 20 to 25 percent of minority persons are victims of a prejudice-motivated act where the intent of the actor was to inflict physical or psychological harm. Whites experience such victimization at a rate of 10 to 15 percent.

Sixth, when victims are asked why they did not report what happened to them, they give two primary reasons. They don’t believe that authorities would do anything about it and they don’t believe authorities could do anything about it. There are, of course, many other factors involved, but these two, I would argue, reflect accurately on a recognition of the national unwillingness of elites to attack the problems of prejudice directly.

Seventh, hate crimes and incidents do more damage than similar acts which are not motivated by prejudice. Not only do they tear away at the fabric of community, but they do serious harm to its victims. The research of The Prejudice Institute has demonstrated that the level of trauma is greater for hate crime victims.

Eighth, since the initial federal, hate crimes legislation (1990), some criminologists have claimed that most hate crimes are committed by teenagers and by members of White supremacist hate groups. The research says otherwise. There are no age or even ideological boundaries distinguishing perpetrators. To be sure, there are many different types of perpetrators, but basically they come from all over the socioeconomic spectrum.

Ninth, as the seriousness of hate crimes came to be established, social psychologists began examining the traumatic effects of “hate speech.” As might be expected, their research has demonstrated that words do wound. Acts of verbal aggression and the use of icons of hate such as a swastika or burning cross, are psychologically violent. In fact, acts of verbal aggression are not only traumatic, but they frequently evoke as much suffering as acts of physical violence.

Tenth, the conservative response to hate crimes is to try and explain them away as perceptions defined by “political correctness.” They argue that you can’t very often tell whether a crime or incident is motivated by prejudice. The label is applied, then, as an act of political correctness. Actually, it is surprisingly easy to identify crimes motivated by prejudice. For one thing, most perpetrators want their act to be known for what it is. Further, they often act against symbolic targets and in clear social contexts. For example, anti-Semitic acts increase around Christmas, racist acts increase on King’s birthday. The perpetrators typically use verbal slurs and name-calling, and they carry with them or leave behind messages that make their intention clear.

Hate crimes are part of everyday prejudices that get acted out in schools, in the workplace, and on the streets. Recognizing this is vital. However, it is essential that we also recognize that there is no national resolve among the political, social, and religious elites of this society to act against discrimination and hate crimes. Without that resolve, a true democracy remains elusive.

Who We Are • Projects • Newsletter • Publications • Guest Book • Speakers • Internships • Factsheets • Links • Current Issues • HOME