Hate Crimes
Jack Levin and Jack McDevitt
Northeastern University
Hate Crimes are criminal offenses motivated either entirely or in part by the fact or perception that a victim is different from the perpetrator. Used by the FBI and a number of other law enforcement agencies across the United States, this definition has three important elements that have been widely accepted: first, it involves actions that have already been defined as illegal in state or federal statutes. Thus, the vast majority of hate crime laws do not criminalize any new behavior; instead, they increase the penalty for behaviors that are already against the law. Second, the definition specifies the motivation for committing the offense; it requires that a racial, religious, ethnic or some other identified difference between victim and offender play at least some role in inspiring the criminal act. For example, an individual who seeks money to buy illicit drugs may decide to rob only Asians because of some stereotype he holds regarding this group of people. If part of the motivation for the robbery involves the victim's Asian identity, then the offense can be regarded as a hate crime. Third, the definition of hate crimes provided here does not identify a particular set of protected groups to which the hate crime designation can be exclusively applied. Unlike statutes in many states in which protected racial, religious, and ethnic groups are specified, this definition includes any group difference that separates the victim from the offender in the offender's mind. This broad definitional standard undoubtedly introduces much ambiguity in deciding whether or not any particular case fits, but it also allows for inclusion of important cases that might not come up very frequently; for example, attacks on homeless men that have occurred from time to time in various cities across the United States. The use of an open-ended standard also allows for the possibility that other groups can be added to the list protected by hate-crime legislation. Some have argued, for example, that gender-motivated crimes of violence (e.g., rape) should be considered a hate crime in order to place them "on equal legal footing with analogous deprivations based on race, national origin, religion, and sexual orientation" (Weisburd and Levin, 1994; p 42). Some thirteen American states now treat gender-motivated offenses as hate crimes.
The term hate crime first appeared in the late 1980's as a way of understanding a racial incident in the Howard Beach section of New York City, in which a black man was killed while attempting to evade a violent mob of white teenagers, shouting racial epithets. Although widely used by the federal government of the United States, the media, and researchers in the field, the term is somewhat misleading because it suggests incorrectly that hatred is invariably a distinguishing characteristic of this type of crime. While it is true that many hate crimes involve intense animosity toward the victim, many others do not. Conversely, many crimes involving hatred between the offender and the victim are not "hate crimes" in the sense intended here. For example an assault that arises out of a dispute between two white, male co-workers who compete for a promotion might involve intense hatred, even though it is not based on any racial or religious differences between them. Similarly, a love-triangle resulting in manslaughter may provoke intense emotions, having nothing at all to do with race or religion.
Hate crimes are also known by other names. The most commonly employed of such terms is bias crime, perhaps because it accurately emphasizes that such offenses often arise out of prejudice toward another group of individuals. In addition, Howard Ehrlich (1990), director of the Prejudice Institute at Towson State University has coined the term ethno-violence to include acts that do not rise to the legal standard of a crime, but contain an element of prejudice. These hate incidents may, for example, include the use of ethnic slurs or the exclusion of members of targeted groups from social activities at the workplace.
Legal Distinctions
At present there is no U.S. federal statute that prohibits hate crimes. The Congress of the United States in 1990 passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act which requires the reporting of statistics on hate crimes, but did not dictate that the commission of a hate crime be regarded as a violation of federal law.
In the United States, it has been left up to the states to formulate hate crime legislation. While 39 states presently have some form of hate crime statute(Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1997), there exists a wide variation among states in the specifics of their laws. For example, In the area of protected groups (i.e., particular groups are designated as protected in the statute), most states list crimes targeted towards individuals because of their race, religion, or ethnicity as prohibited. However, a number of states also include sexual orientation, disability, and age. The implication of this lack of uniformity is that members of a particular group may be protected by a hate crime statute in one community but not protected in a neighboring community in an adjacent state.
A second area of legal distinctions involves the penalty structure of the statute. In some states, a separate statute exists which prohibits hate crime behavior. In other states the hate crime statute is a "penalty enhancement." This means that if an existing crime is committed and it is motivated by bias, the penalty on the existing crime may be increased. Penalty enhancements have been enacted in other areas as well. For example, they have been applied to crimes committed with a gun, crimes committed by individuals with long criminal histories and crimes committed against vulnerable victims such as children (Stossen, 1993).
The United States has chosen not to follow the lead of many European countries, where anti-hate speech legislation has been passed. Countries including Canada, France, Great Britain and Germany have all passed laws prohibiting at least some forms of hate speech (Watts, 1997). In Germany, these forms of prohibition have been applied most broadly, particularly in the area of Nazi propaganda and symbols which are illegal to own or display. Consistent with its long tradition of free speech protections, the United States has, except on college campuses, decided not to develop similar legislation. Even in the area of campus speech codes, moreover, the American efforts to control offensive speech have been met with significant resistance and debate.
Hate Crimes and Prejudice
From a psychological perspective, "prejudice" refers to a negative attitude toward individuals based on their perceived group membership--for example, their race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation(Ehrlich, 1972; Levin and Levin, 1982). Though as a form of discriminatory behavior, hate crimes often have an attitudinal dimension, the relationship between prejudice and criminal behavior tends to be complex. There is reason to believe that certain hate offenses result from some personal bias or hatred. Perpetrators may act out of prejudicial beliefs (i.e., stereotypes) and/or emotions (e.g., envy, fear, or revulsion) concerning people who are different. In the extreme case, a hatemonger may join an organized group in order to devote his life to destroying a group of people he considers "inferior." Where it is cultural, a particular prejudice may even become a widely shared and enduring element in the normal state of affairs of the society in which it occurs. As such, it may be learned from an early age through parents, friends, teachers, and the mass media. Individuals separated by region, age, social class, and ethnic background all tend to share roughly the same stereotyped images of various groups. In the United States, for example, some degree of anti-black racism can be found among substantial segments of Americans--males and females, young and old, rich and poor--from New York to California. In Germany, the same might be said of anti-Semitism as well as anti-Turkish immigrant sentiment (Levin and Levin, 1982). In fact, a recent analysis of anti-Jewish attitudes in east and west Germany found that strong anti-Semitism remained in west Germany even after "four decades of re-education...and a nearly total taboo on public expressions of anti-Semitism"(Watts, 1997; p. 219). It is not, however, always necessary for the prejudice to precede the criminal behavior. In fact, from the literature in social psychology, we know that prejudices often develop or at least become strengthened in order to justify previous discriminatory behavior (See Levin and Levin, 1982).
This is probably true of hate crimes as well. For example, a white teenager may assault someone who is black because his friends expect him to comply, not because he personally feels intense hatred toward his victim. If he views the target of his attack as a flesh-and-blood human being with feelings, friends, and a family, the offender may feel guilty. By accepting a dehumanized image of the victim, however, the perpetrator may actually come to believe that his crime was justified. After all, the rules of civilized society apply only to human beings, not to demons or animals. Similarly, an individual may initially commit an act of violence against an individual for economic reasons (e.g., because he believes that the presence of blacks in his neighborhood reduces property values) and subsequently becomes totally convinced that all blacks are rapists and murderers. Who would want a rapist living next door?
Such negative images are often seen in warfare. The underlying causes of a conflict may be economic, but stereotyping facilitates bloodshed. In Northern Ireland, for example, civil strife seems to be reinforced by a set of stereotypes of Catholics and Protestants that might be expected to describe racial differences alone--for example, that Catholics have shorter foreheads and less space between their eyes than their Protestant neighbors (Levin, 1997). At times, certain prejudices become narrowly targeted. During the 1800's and early 1900's, when they came to the United States and competed for jobs with native-born citizens, Irish-American newcomers were stereotyped by political cartoonists of the day as apes and crocodiles ( Keen, 1986). During the same period, as soon as they began to compete with native-born landowners and merchants, Italian immigrants settling in New Orleans were widely depicted as members of organized crime (Gambino, 1977). Similarly, the term "gook" was employed by the allies during World War II to characterize the Japanese enemy, during the Korean conflict to refer to North Koreans, and during the Vietnam war to refer to North Vietnamese and Vietcong. In the mid-1970's, as large numbers of newcomers arrived in the United States, the term "gook" became a racial slur with which to discredit all southeast Asian immigrants.
Thus, although some hate crimes may be committed out of a profound sense of hatred toward the members of a victim's group, others may be committed for conformist or economic reasons and subsequently reinforced by the development of prejudice. As a result, It is important to operationally define hate crimes, based not on an offender's initial bias motivation alone, but on the fact that victims are chosen because they are different in terms of their race, religion, ethnic identity, or sexual orientation.
Since the 1960s, social scientists have increasingly downplayed the importance of individual-level prejudice. To a growing extent, the thinking in behavioral science has been that racist attitudes (or at least their public expression) are on the decline and that discrimination is more or less independent of prejudice (See, for example, Schuman, 1988). In 1974, for example, 55 journal articles in psychology and 32 journal articles in sociology dealt directly with the concept of prejudice; in 1984, these figures declined somewhat to 41 articles in psychology and 26 in sociology. By 1994, only 30 psychology articles and 13 sociology articles were concerned with the topic of prejudice (Levin and McDevitt, 1995a). Rather than focus on individual prejudices, researchers in the behavioral sciences have during recent decades turned more of their attention to investigate institutional and structural forms of discrimination: in college applications, for example, the manner in which SATs indirectly favor white applicants, whether or not individual admissions officers hold racist attitudes; in real estate transactions, how real estate associations, as a matter of policy, "steer" black homebuyers from white neighborhoods, regardless of the racial biases of particular agents (Pearce, 1979). Because behavioral scientists have enthusiastically examined such structural issues, they may have been surprised when advocacy groups suggested that hate violence was on the rise. The so-called "new" or "modern" racism emphasized subtle and institutionalized forms of bigotry; it failed to recognize the possibility that policies and programs directed at reducing structural forms of discrimination (e.g., affirmative action and compulsory busing) might also provoke increasing numbers of hate crimes committed by members of traditionally advantaged groups in society.
Why treat hate crimes differently ?
Since hate crimes by definition involve behavior that is already prohibited by state or federal statutes (e.g. assault, threats, vandalism), the question is frequently posed as to why we need additional penalties. Are these crimes truly different? We believe that a number of characteristics of hate incidents make them different from other types of offenses. First, hate crimes are directed symbolically at large groups of people, not at a single individual. If youths decide that they do not want blacks living on their block, they may decide to throw a rock through the window of a home owned by a new neighbor who is black. Their intention is to send a message not just to that neighbor but to all blacks, informing them that their presence in the neighborhood will not be tolerated.
Thus, not unlike acts of terrorism, hate crimes are about messages. Offenders use a criminal event to put the members of an entire group on notice, by example, that they are not welcome in a community, in a workplace, on a college campus, or at school. By contrast, if a window is broken in a simple act of vandalism, the offenders typically have no desire to communicate anything in particular to the property owner; in fact, they frequently do not even know anything about the victim they have targeted.
Another characteristic that differentiates hate crimes from most other offenses is that the victim characteristic motivating the attack (e.g., race or ethnicity) is in most cases ascribed and immutable. A person cannot modify her/his race, ethnicity, age, gender or disability status. Even a religious identity or a sexual orientation cannot be modified without causing an individual to make dramatic and painful changes in lifestyle. Consequently, if a woman is attacked because she is a Latina, there is little that individual can do to become "de-Latinized" and thus reduce the likelihood of her future victimization. This is also true of perceived characteristics. If a man becomes a hate-crime victim because he is perceived by a group of youths to be gay, he is also powerless to change the offenders' perception of him. The feeling on the part of victims that they lack control over the characteristic that motivated their victimization causes most hate crime victims to feel extremely vulnerable to future bias-motivated attacks (Freeman, 1993). A third characteristic of hate crimes that makes them different from many other offenses is that the individual victim typically did nothing to provoke the attack and is therefore interchangeable, at least from the perpetrator's standpoint. To a group of youths waiting outside a gay bar to attack someone whom they believe might be gay, it does not matter which individual comes through the door next. Whoever comes out is likely to become a victim, because all bar patrons are identical in the mind of the perpetrator. Indeed, the interchangeability of victims tends to apply as well across groups of victims. If offenders cannot locate the members of one racial group to terrorize, they are likely to target members of another racial group. This aspect of hate crimes suggests that they are often motivated by an offender's psychological need to feel superiority at the expense of his victims.
In order to collect data about hate crimes in a large city, we examined records compiled over a sixteen-month period by the Community Disorders Unit of the Boston Police Department (Levin and McDevitt, 1995b). The final sample totaled 169 hate crimes--all such offenses reported to the Boston Police during the 1991-92 period under study where the offenders were known. Regarding the lack of victim precipitation in hate offenses, most of the victims we studied in Boston were simply walking down the street when they were attacked (Levin and McDevitt 1995b). Regarding incidents in which they did do something that could be seen as precipitating, victims were most often engaged in some constitutionally protected right; for example, moving into a house in a previously all white neighborhood or worshiping in a church or synagogue. In Boston, 66 percent of the hate crimes we studied were committed by strangers to their victims. Generalized to cities and towns across the nation, this finding along with the fact that victims seldom do anything to precipitate the attack make victims of these incidents incredibly nervous. Criminologists have long known that random acts of violence--for example, serial killings and airplane bombings--generate disproportionate levels of anxiety in most people. Unable to distance themselves from the incident, they fear that they could be next. Similarly, victims of most hate crimes believe they can do little to reduce the potential of future victimization. They typically feel helpless in the face of random attacks.
Deputy Superintendent William Johnston, formally commander of the Boston Police Department's hate crime-investigation unit observes that hate crime offenders are typically "cowards" because they need to feel that they outnumber the victim before they can attack. It is true that most hate crimes seem to involve multiple offenders assaulting a single victim. In Boston, for example, 73 percent of the incidents reported to the police involved more than one offender, and frequently several of them. Clearly, any attack by a group against an individual is more threatening than an attack by only one person. Hate crimes can be grouped according to their targets. In sending a message to their victims, some hate crimes are aimed at property through vandalism, while others are directed at individuals in the form of violence. In an escalating cycle, those victims who are assaulted may have received earlier threats to their property or perhaps less serious personal abuse. Some research suggests that attacks against individuals can be incredibly violent. According to Levin (1992-93), hate offenses are more likely than other serious crimes to include a physical assault. Moreover, when hate crimes involve assaultive behavior, they tend to be especially brutal. In Boston, for example, victims of hate-motivated assaults were three times more likely to need hospital treatment than other assault victims (Levin & McDevitt 1993; for a contrasting view, see Martin, 1995). The especially brutal nature of hate violence may be due to the depersonalization that many hate crime offenders employ in justifying their offenses. Hatemongers frequently view members of targeted groups as less that human. They reason, therefore, that is appropriate to treat their victims in the manner they might treat a wild animal or a demon.
Problems in Collecting Hate Crime data
During the 1980's researchers, journalists, and government officials increasingly turned their attention to questions regarding the extent and nature of hate crimes in the United States. At that time there were no national data gathered on the incidence and character of such offenses. The FBI, that agency responsible for collecting and reporting national data on crime, did not collect information separately for offenses motivated by bias. For example, a hate motivated assault reported by the local police to the FBI would be grouped together with other assaults, regardless of their motivation. As a result, it was impossible to distinguish which offenses were hate motivated and which were not (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1997). Even though no national data on hate crimes existed during this period, some public information began to be collected at the state and local levels. As early as 1979, Maryland became the first state to collect hate crime data; several other states--for example, Rhode Island and Connecticut--followed Maryland's lead. At the local level a number of large cities including Boston, Baltimore, and New York City began collecting information about the hate crimes incidents they had investigated. Even though such state and local jurisdictions provided important information about the extent and character of hate crimes, legal and procedural differences between them prevented making any meaningful comparisons across state and city lines. In addition, a recent report by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (1996) found that only 6 of 30 responding states could provide any information on the age of hate crime offenders.
Also during the 1980's, a small number of private organizations collected data on hate crime incidents in the U.S. The Anti-defamation League (ADL) has been collecting and reporting data on anti-Semitic incidents since 1981. In 1990 the ADL was the only public or private organization engaged in an ongoing national hate crime data collection effort. Other organizations such as the national Gay Lesbian Task Force collected information about incidents of anti-gay violence. While their evidence may be somewhat unreliable as a national data string, the Task Force did provide a basis for some very important studies of anti-gay violence (See, for example, Berrill, 1992). In April 1990, Congress passed and the President signed the Hate Crime Statistics Act (28 USC 534). Though not criminalizing any particular behavior, the Act did require the Attorney General of the United States to publish an annual report about crimes that "manifest evidence of bias based upon race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity." This act authorized the first national data collection effort undertaken by any public agency to be targeted specifically at hate crimes. The Uniform Crime Reporting Section of the FBI has been designated as the federal agency empowered to collect and tabulate these data. Although charging the Attorney General with the responsibility for collecting information and publishing an annual report about hate crimes, the Hate Crime Statistics Act did not require that local law enforcement agencies report to the FBI. Historically, crime reporting has been voluntary with most but not all major law enforcement agencies agreeing to participate.
Hate crime reporting was initially a different story. Many agencies had not separated hate crimes data from other offenses in their collection procedures. As a result, retrieving hate crime data was not an easy task. In addition, many law enforcement agencies resisted the new national emphasis on hate crime investigation. For these reasons, few agencies participated in the original effort. In 1991 2,771 agencies submitted hate crime data to the FBI, representing only 20% of the agencies participating in the UCR program. Through significant training efforts of the UCR section of the FBI and support from local advocacy groups, however, by 1996 the participation rate had increased to 11,355 agencies representing approximately 60% of all agencies submitting information to the FBI (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1997).
Types of Hate Crimes
When they read newspaper accounts of an assault or vandalism based on race, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, many Americans immediately assume that an organized hate group was involved. Early reports of church burnings in the south almost invariably attempted to implicate the Ku Klux Klan in some sort of far-reaching conspiratorial plan to destroy the fabric of life for black Americans, especially those who reside in rural areas of the south. After more careful study, however, the situation appeared much more complex. Although a few cases involved the Klan, it turned out that most of the racially inspired church burnings had little if anything to do with white supremacist groups. In South Carolina, for example, two-thirds of them were instead perpetrated by teenagers and young adults looking for a good time. Some of the young perpetrators had tenuous links with the KKK, if only because they enjoyed their symbols of power or Klan propaganda. But most of the youthful offenders operated on their own, without being directly guided by the members of any organized group including the KKK (Paulsen, 1996). Like church burnings, hate crimes in general are typically committed by individuals without links to any organized groups. With this in mind, we propose a typology in which hate crimes can be classified in terms of their offenders' motivations. In our view, there are three distinct types which we identify as thrill, defensive, and mission. Thrill Hate Crimes. Based on Boston Police Department reports, we found that nearly three out of five hate crimes in that city were committed for the thrill. More than 53 percent of these thrill offenses were committed by two or more offenders looking for trouble in the victim's neighborhood. Perpetrators were predominantly white teen-age males, the vast majority of whom--some 91 percent--did not know the person they were attacking. Latinos and Asians had the highest victimization rates; whites had the lowest. One surprising finding was the extent of the violence associated with thrill hate attacks. We found that fully 70 percent of the thrill offenses were assaults, sometimes brutal attacks that put the victim in the hospital.
Thrill hate crimes are committed by offenders who are looking for excitement. In the same way that some young men get together on a Saturday night to play a game of cards, youthful hatemongers gather to destroy property or to bash minorities. They look merely to have some fun and stir up a little excitement...but at someone else's expense. In a thrill-seeking hate crime, there need not be a precipitating incident. The victim does not necessarily "invade" the territory of the assailant by walking through his neighborhood, moving onto his block, or attending his school. On the contrary, it is the assailant or group of assailants, looking to harass those who are different, who searches out locations where the members of a particular group regularly congregate. The payoff for the perpetrators is psychological as well as social: In addition to gaining a sense of importance and control, the youthful perpetrators also receive a stamp of approval from their friends who regard hatred as "hip" or "cool"(Levin and McDevitt, 1993). Defensive Hate Crimes. Not all hate offenses are motivated by thrill or excitement; not every hate crime is committed by groups of teenagers. In defensive hate crimes, the hatemongers seize on what they consider as a precipitating or triggering incident to serve as a catalyst for the expression of their anger. They rationalize that by attacking an outsider they are in fact taking a protective posture, a defensive stance against intruders. Indeed, they often cast the outsiders in the role of those actively threatening them, while they regard themselves as pillars of the community. As with thrill hate attacks, most defensive hate offenses in our study of incidents reported to the Boston police involved white offenders who did not know their Asian, Latino, or Black victims. In defensive crimes, however, the majority were committed by a single offender.
Whereas in thrill-motivated hate crimes a group of teenagers travels to another area to find victims, the perpetrators in defensive hate crimes typically never leave their own neighborhood, school, or workplace. From the point of view of the perpetrators, it is their community, means of livelihood, or way of life that has been threatened by the mere presence of members of some other group. The hatemongers therefore feel justified, even obligated, to go on the "defensive." Characteristically, they feel few, if any, pangs of guilt even if they savagely attack an outsider. In thrill hate crimes, almost any member of a vulnerable group will usually "do" as a target. In contrast, the perpetrators of defensive hate crimes tend to target a particular individual or set of individuals who are perceived to constitute a personal threat--the black family that has just moved into the all white neighborhood, the white college student who has begun to date her Asian classmate, or the Latino who has recently been promoted at work. Just as in thrill hate crimes, the offenders in defensive attacks are not necessarily associated with any organized hate group. Typically, the perpetrators have no prior history of either crime or overt bigotry. Their reaction may have an economic basis--they fear losing property value or opportunities for advancement at work. Sometimes they react instead to a symbolic loss of "turf" or "privilege"--for example, when "our women" begin to date "them" or when "they" come into our neighborhood and begin to "take over."
According to a survey conducted by the Klanwatch Project, a unit of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Birmingham, Alabama, about half of all racially-inspired acts of vandalism and violence are directed at blacks moving into previously white neighborhoods. Typical of such hate crimes is the case of Purnell Daniels, a 41-year-old black engineer whose house was located in a mostly white section of Newark, Delaware. In May, 1989, he discovered a cardboard containing the raised letters KKK glued to the front door of his home. The escalation of violence that often occurs in such attacks can also be illustrated. In 1997, a group of whites in Grayson, Georgia shouted racial epithets at a black couple as they moved their belongings into their new home in a previously all-white neighborhood. A week later, when it was clear that the couple had no intention of leaving, assailants sprayed gunfire at their home. At least four bullets struck the house, one missing the man's head by a few inches. This time, the black couple seriously considered moving out of the neighborhood (Associated Press, 1997). Given the competitive nature of the workplace, it should come as no surprise that many defensive hate crimes also occur on the job. In their study of "ethnoviolence at work," sociologists Joan Weiss, Howard Ehrlich, and Barbara Larcom interviewed a national sample of 2078 Americans. These researchers found that 27 percent of all respondents who reported "prejudice-based" episodes experienced them while at work. These incidents included break-ins, property damage, robbery, harassing language, physical assaults, sexual harassment, or rapes.(Weiss, et al, 1991-2).
Mission Hate Crimes.
Defensive hate crimes are generally aimed against particular "outsiders"--those who are regarded as posing a personal challenge to a perpetrator's workplace, neighborhood, or physical well-being. The attack tends to be narrowly focused. Once the threat is perceived to subside, so does the criminal behavior. On occasion, hate crimes go beyond what their perpetrators consider reaction, at least in the narrow sense. Rather than direct their attack at those individuals involved in a particular event or episode--moving into the neighborhood, taking a job at the next desk, attending the same party--the perpetrators are ready to wage "war" against any and all members of a particular group of people. No precipitating episode occurs; none is necessary. The perpetrator is on a moral mission: His assignment is to make the world a better place to live. Those who perpetrate a mission crime are convinced that all outgroup members are subhumans who are bent on destroying our culture, our economy, or the purity of our racial heritage. The offender therefore is concerned about much more than simply eliminating a few blacks or Latinos from his job, his neighborhood, or his school. Instead, he believes that he has a higher-order purpose in carrying out his crime. He has been instructed by God or, in a more secular version, by the Imperial Wizard or the Grand Dragon to rid the world of evil by eliminating all blacks, Latinos, Asians, or Jews; and he is compelled to act before it is too late. Mission hate-crime offenders are likely to join an organized group such as the KKK or the White Aryan Resistance. In our study of hate crimes reported to the Boston police, we uncovered only one mission hate offense among our 169 cases (Levin and McDevitt, 1995b). This result is consistent with recent estimates that no more than 5 percent of all hate crimes in the United States involve organized hate groups.
A few perpetrators of mission hate crimes operate alone and typically suffer from a profound mental illness which may cause hallucinations, impaired ability to reason, and withdrawal from contact with other people. What is more, he believes that he must get even for the horrific problems that he has suffered. In his paranoid and delusional way of thinking, he sees a conspiracy of some kind for which he seeks revenge. His mission is in part suicidal. Before taking his own life, however, he must attempt to eliminate the entire category of people he is absolutely convinced is responsible for his personal frustrations. There are rare cases in which a depressed and frustrated gunman has opened fire with the objective of eliminating all women, Asians, or white racists (See Fox and Levin, 1994).
Organized Hate Groups
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center's Klanwatch project, there may be 20,000 and almost certainly no more than 50,000 members of white supremacist groups across the United States--a country whose residents number more than 265 million. Membership in citizens' militias has been estimated at between fifteen and one hundred thousand (Karl, 1995). Klanwatch (1997) suggests that these militia groups number 370 and are only loosely connected to one another. It should also be pointed out that the militia movement in the United States is diverse. Some members are clearly racist in their beliefs, but there are also Jewish and Black militia members (Levin, 1997). The constitutionality of militia activities has, however, been challenged by observers who regard them as illegal private armies (Halpern and Levin, 1996). In addition, there seems to be some degree of overlap in the memberships of white supremacy groups and militias (Karl, 1995; Levin, 1997). The growing presence of hate groups is hardly confined to the United States, but has occurred around the world. In Germany, for example, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution reported in 1991 that there were 4,400 neo-Nazis in Germany, most of whom were skinheads. By adding in all other right wing extremist and Nazi groups in the country, this figure swells to approximately 40,000--an increase of nearly 20 percent over the 1990 figures for Germany. But numbers alone do not tell the full story of the impact of organized hate. In total, It is not only their revolutionary activism, but the growing sophistication of such organized hate groups in reaching the young people around the world--their apparent finesse and respectability--that represents the real cause for alarm. White supremacy groups encourage, and in certain cases even train, the 3500 racist skinheads who have been responsible for perpetrating violence against people of color, Jews, gays, and other vulnerable people (ADL, 1997). Known for their "uniforms" consisting of shaved heads, black jackets and steel-toed boots, most skinheads have been at best loosely organized. Most have no formal ties with white supremacy groups, although they may be inspired by such organizations.
It should also be noted that hundreds of thousands of individuals in many different countries agree to some extent, if not wholeheartedly, with the principles of white supremacy, even if they would never join a hate group(Langer, 1990). White supremacist groups represent a fringe element among those who commit hate crimes. In statistical terms alone, the membership of all organized hate groups combined constitutes a tiny fraction of the population, most of whom wouldn't consider burning a cross or wearing a swastika. Even so, the influence of white supremacist groups like Posse Comitatus, White Aryan Resistance, Aryan Nations and the Ku Klux Klan may be considerably greater than their numbers might suggest. It takes only a small band of dedicated extremists to make trouble for a large number of apathetic middle-of-the-roaders. Even in this age of activism, there are many solid citizens who have neither the time nor the inclination for political action. In Europe, this popular sentiment has taken the form of growing support for far right political parties. Le Pen and his National Front in France, the Flemish block in Belgium, the Free Party in Austria, and MSI in Italy have all experienced increasing support in recent years. In addition, Le Pen holds an influential position in French government (Watts, 1997).
Most Americans are at least somewhat acquainted with the objectives of white hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. Those who are familiar with American history know that the Klan has risen and fallen time and time again in response to challenges to the advantaged position of the white majority. During a short period of post-civil war reconstruction, for example, many whites were challenged by newly freed slaves who sought some measure of political power and began to compete for jobs with white working-class southerners. Thus, the Klan, responding with a campaign of terror and violence, lynched many blacks. Klan-initiated violence increased again during the 1920s, as native-born Americans sought "protection" from an unprecedented influx of immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe. During the 1950s and 1960s, uniformed members of George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party gave the Nazi salute and shouted "Heil Hitler." During the same period, Klansmen in their sheets and hoods marched in opposition to racial desegregation in schools and public facilities. By contrast, the newer organized hate groups of the 1980s and 1990s don't always come so easily to mind for their bizarre uniforms or rituals. Followers of such white supremecy groups as John and Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance (WAR) have shed their sheets and burning crosses in favor of more conventional attire. They often disavow the Klan and the Nazi movement in favor of a brand of "American patriotism" that plays better among the working people of America. In France, one of the original organizing slogans of Le Pen's right-wing party was the utterly respectable idea: "Two million foreigners, two million Frenchmen out of work" (Watts, 1997). Moreover, white supremacist organizations now often cloak their hatred in the aura and dogma of Christianity. Followers of the religious arm of the hate movement, the Identity Church, are only "doing the work of God. " At Sunday services, they preach that white Anglo-Saxons are the true Israelites depicted in the Old Testament, God's chosen people, while Jews are actually the children of Satan. They maintain that Jesus was not a Jew, but an ancestor of the white, northern European peoples. In their view, blacks are "pre-Adamic," a species lower than whites. In fact, they claim that blacks and other non-white groups are at the same spiritual level as animals and therefore have no souls.
Members of the movement also believe in the inevitability of a global war between the races which only white people will ultimately survive. The survivalists among Identity followers prepare for war by moving to communes where they can stockpile weapons, provide paramilitary training, and pray. According to a recent Identity directory, there are Identity churches in 33 American states, Canada, England, South Africa, and Australia. (Langer, 1990). The particularly depressed economic conditions in rural areas of the United States since the early 1980's have provided a fertile breeding ground for organized hate. Playing on a theme that has special appeal to downtrodden farmers and small town residents, members of Posse Comitatus (latin for "power of the county") argue that all government power should be focused at the county, not the federal level. From this perspective, IRS agents and federal judges are mortal enemies of the white race, and the county sheriff constitutes the one and only form of legitimate government. Many members of the Posse refuse to pay taxes. They charge that Jews create recessions and depressions and control the Federal Reserve (Lamy, 1996). Consistent with its emphasis on maintaining local control, Posse Comitatus has no nationally recognized leadership and consists of a number of decentralized and loosely affiliated groups of vigilantes and survivalists. But, from time to time, the Posse has attracted national attention.
Are hate crimes on the rise?
Due to the inadequacy of the hate crime data to date, we cannot know with certainty whether the number of hate crimes in the United States has increased, decreased, or remained stable over time. Because legal definitions are in flux and additional law enforcement agencies are constantly being added to those who report to the FBI, the data from one year to the next are frequently not comparable. In addition, much of the data collected on an annual basis have been reported by advocacy groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, making them subject to the criticism that such organizations have a vested interest in generating inflated figures. Indeed, some observers have even suggested that those who argue that hate offenses have increased are creating a "social construction" without any basis in reality (Jacobs, 1996;1997). With such limitations in mind, however, it is still possible to gain some perspective as to changes in the prevalence of hate crimes over time. Based on data collected by various advocacy groups such as the ADL, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, it is likely that hate crimes in the United States increased throughout the decade of the 1980's and into the early years of the 1990's.
First, this conclusion is in agreement with evidence gathered by independent research organizations concerning hate incidents generally. The National Institute Against Prejudice and Violence in Baltimore found, for example, a dramatic upsurge in 1989 in racial and anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses (Ehrlich, 1990). At the same time, sociologist Gary Spencer reported a growth of JAP ("Jewish-American Princess") baiting on his campus, Syracuse University, as well as on other campuses around the United States (Anti-Defamation League, 1988). Spencer's observations coincided with those of Keough (1990), a Professor of English whose research suggested that a new form of "attack comedy" aimed at the most downtrodden and least fortunate members of American society was on the rise. Finally, anti-government militias and survivalists--groups almost totally unheard of before 1980--have made their presence increasingly known throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. Although many militia members disavow any connection with hatemongers, there is at least some overlap between militia groups and white supremacists in the United States (Anti-Defamation League, 1997; Karl, 1995). Global reports of ethnic violence also lend support to the suggestion that hate crimes have been on the rise. Though claims as to the increasing presence of hate crimes in the United States may be controversial, reports of escalating violence directed against Jews and immigrant groups in the early 1990's remains essentially undisputed for many European countries including France, Germany, England, Poland, Italy, Russia, and Hungary. In these countries, there were dramatic increases in violent skinhead and neo-Nazi demonstrations or in the prevalence of political bigotry (Hamm, 1994). In Germany, for example, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution reported that "xenophobic and violent" acts monitored by this government agency increased dramatically from 1989 through 1992, and since then have begun to decline.
During 1991 alone, for example, there were almost 1500 attacks against foreigners in Germany. In April, 1991, a 28-year-old Mozambican was killed by a gang of neo-Nazi East German youths who pushed him from a moving trolley in the city of Dresden. In September, 1991, 600 right-wing German youths firebombed a home for foreigners and then physically assaulted 200 Vietnamese and Mozambicans in the streets of Hoyerswerde. In August 1992, there were seven nights of organized violence in the streets of the East German seaport town of Rostock . Armed with gasoline bombs and stones, a thousand Nazi youths attempted to force out foreigners seeking asylum in Germany. First, the mob firebombed a 10-story hostel in which Romanian gypsies were housed. Then, they stormed the building next door, a residence for Vietnamese "guest workers," and set it on fire. Within days, the attacks in Rostock had touched off a massive wave of anti-foreign violence in at least 20 cities around eastern Germany. A second factor in evaluating the validity of the argument that hate crimes have been on the increase involves the issue of bias. It is obvious that all data about social and political phenomena are collected either by individuals or by organizations consisting of individuals who come to the research situation with their own personal biases and preconceptions. If there is a social construction among those who have observed an increase, then there may also be a social construction among those who deny it. Very few conclusions based on social science research are clearcut. After amassing incredible amounts of evidence as to the harmful nature of television programming on children, for example, there continue to be observers who deny that television violence is the least bit harmful. Those who are eager to criticize those researchers who have argued that hate crimes are on the rise must be careful not to expect more rigorous evidence of their adversaries than they expect of themselves.
Reports of increased hate offenses are supported also by studies that show inter-group hostility escalating as a result of increasing inter-group contact, especially in the form of competition (Sherif and Sherif, 1961). Research conducted by The Chicago Reporter (1997) suggests that Chicago-area suburbs with growing minority populations have recently experienced increasing numbers of hate offenses against blacks and Latinos. In many previously all-white suburban communities, minorities have reached a critical mass, causing white residents to feel threatened by the influx of newcomers. This seems to be the point at which hate crimes escalate. Those who argue that hate crimes have been increasing also note that inter-group competition has been on the rise (Olzak, et al., 1996). Whether or not economically-based, growing threats to the advantaged majority group since the early 1980's may have inspired a rising tide of hate incidents directed against members of challenging groups. Over the last fifteen or twenty years, there have been dramatic increases in inter-faith and inter-race dating and marriage, migration especially from Latin America and Asia, newly integrated neighborhoods, schools, college dormitories, and workplaces, and gay men and lesbians coming out (and, in many cases, organizing on behalf of their shared interests). Donald Green and his associates (1997) have shown that hate crimes occur most frequently in "defended" white neighborhoods--that is, in predominantly white areas which have experienced an in-migration of minorities.
As for the contention that advocacy groups inflate their estimates of hate crimes, it is interesting to note that the ADL has recently reported decreases in skinhead activity and in the overall level of hate crimes. Their more recent conclusions concerning the downward trend in hate offenses is consistent with evidence collected by the FBI indicating that serious crime in general has declined since 1992. Regardless of the reality, the question of whether hate crimes have been increasing or decreasing overall may not be as useful a question as it might appear. Hate crimes are relatively rare and often result from a particular incident or a set of conditions in a local area. We have seen increases in hate crimes in local communities, as a result of court orders to desegregate public housing (Boston), after a highly publicized death (Howard Beach NY), or in response to some large-scale external situation (attacks on Arab-Americans during the gulf war). In addition, demographic shifts within a metropolitan region can cause hate crime incidents to rise and fall. In the Chicago area, many suburban communities in which the proportion of black and Latino residents has recently increased now have higher hate crime rates than the city of Chicago (Gordon and Pardo, 1997). Thus, the question of changes in the number of hate crimes might most reasonably be posed in the most disaggregated fashion possible, at a state or community level. Attempts to aggregate hate crime data to a national estimate may mask counteracting trends as one community's incidents go down and another increases.
Responses to Hate Crimes
Interviews with victims of hate violence indicate that the aftermath of the victimization is characterized by a pervasive feeling of fear (Levin and McDevitt 1993). As indicated earlier, the victims of these incidents generally did nothing to bring this violence upon them and thus do not know what to do to reduce their chance of future victimization. Their fear may be based on threats by the offender or friends of the offender but often it is simply based on the random nature of the crime. In order to reduce fear in victims of hate crimes, it is important to offer them some form of protection from future violence and a degree of reassurance that they are valued members of the community. First of all, community leaders must speak out condemning the attack. This is important because it sends two essential messages: to the victims, that local residents want them to remain members of that community and, to the offenders, that most people in the community do not support their illegal behavior. Interviews with hate crime offenders indicate that they frequently believe that most of the community shares their desire to eliminate the "outsider." The offenders often see themselves as heroes or at least as "cool" in the eyes of their friends, because they have the courage to act on what they believe to be commonly held beliefs. Public statements by local community leaders challenge this idea and send a message to offenders that their actions are not supported (Levin and McDevitt, 1993).
As noted earlier, many hate crimes are perpetrated by young people who do not yet have a profound commitment to bigotry and therefore may be dissuaded from repeating their offense. It is important, therefore, to apprehend youthful hate crime perpetrators at this point, especially in light of the possibility that many property offenders who go undetected may later graduate to hate crimes directed against people. Because what the perpetrators derive from committing such crimes is so minimal in a practical sense, they may be very influenced by a strong statement from society at large that demonstrates that this type of behavior won't be tolerated. The local police play an essential role in responding to hate crimes. Advocacy groups can offer support and encouragement, and political leaders can offer reassurance, but the police are the only group that can legitimately promise to protect the victim in any future attack. Before law enforcement personnel can effectively offer this protection to victims of hate crimes, however, they must be trained to identify and investigate these difficult cases. The UCR section of the FBI has developed an outstanding training program for local law enforcement that teaches officers how to identify and effectively prosecute hate crimes.
In the past, judges were likely to respond to hate crimes committed by youthful first offenders by giving them a "slap on the wrist" consisting of a stern warning and little more than a sentence of probation. More recently, however, as the seriousness of hate offenses has received greater recognition by the courts, more and more judges have responded to such offenses with creative alternative sentencing including components of education, community service, and victim restitution. It is unfortunate that some youthful perpetrators have instead received a prison sentence which, in many cases, seems only to increase their hatred and slow their rehabilitation. Many American prisons now have organized hate groups--e.g., Aryan Brotherhood--from which white supremacy groups recruit their members. Anyone convicted of committing a hate crime will be tempted to join an organized hate group in prison, if only for the protection he will need to survive. Incarceration serves an important purpose, but should be reserved for recidivist hatemongers or for individuals who have committed especially heinous crimes (Levin and McDevitt, 1993). Finally, the most important response to a hate crime, as reported by its victims, is the reaction of those closest to them--their neighbors, co-workers, or fellow students. When a hate crime occurs, victims quite realistically wonder just how widespread is the hatred directed towards them. Do all their neighbors agree with the person who attacked them? Therefore, the most significant reaction for most victims is when members of the perpetrator's group come forward to assure the victim that they do not agree with the offenders and to urge the victims to remain in the neighborhood (Not in Our Town II, 1996).
Conclusion
Even if they were not labeled hate crimes, offenses committed against individuals because they are different have undoubtedly occurred throughout the history of humankind. Moreover, depending on prevailing economic and political circumstances at any given time and place, there have been important changes in the incidence of such offenses as well. In particular, hate crimes seem to rise whenever one group in a society feels that its advantaged position is being threatened by the presence of another. This was true in Nazi Germany; it was also true in the United States during Reconstruction, the Great Depression of the 1930's, and the civil rights movement of the 1960's. Even large-scale ethnic conflicts such as those in Bosnia and Northern Ireland seem to be based on inter-group competition for scarce resources. Recent behavioral science research aimed at understanding the causes and characteristics of hate crimes may in part reflect a worsening of inter-group relations during the 1980's and early 1990's, as traditionally disadvantaged groups begin to make claims for equal treatment. In addition, however, such efforts to explain hate crimes probably also reflect a heightened sensitivity to violence perpetrated against vulnerable members of society--especially women, gays, and people of color (Jenness and Broad, 1997). Because of the recent convergence of new social movements involving civil rights, women, gays and lesbians, and victims in general, we are strengthening our efforts to confront the destructive consequences of hate crimes especially for the most vulnerable among us.
Anti-Defamation League, "'JAP Baiting': When Sexism and Anti-Semitism Meet," Special Education of ADL Periodic Update (New York: ADL, 1988).
Anti-Defamation League, The Skinhead International (New York: ADL, 1995).
Anti-Defamation League, Vigilante Justice: Militias and Common Law Courts Wage War Against the Government (New York: ADL, 1997).
Berrill, Kevin, "Anti-Gay Violence and Victimization in the United States: An Overview," in Eds. Herek, Gregory and Berrill, Kevin, Hate Crimes: Confronting Violence Against Lesbians and Gay Men (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1992).
Bureau of Justice Assistance, A Policy Makers Guide to Hate Crimes (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997).
Delgado, Luz "Black Family in North End is Met with Racist Graffiti," Boston Globe July 31, 1992; p. 17.
Ehrlich, Howard, The Social Psychology of Prejudice (New York: Wiley, 1972).
Ehrlich, Howard, "Ethno-Violence on College Campuses," (Baltimore: National Institute Against Prejudice and Violence, 1990).
Fox, James and Jack Levin Overkill: Mass Murder and Serial Killing Exposed (New York: Dell, 1996).
Freeman, Steven, "Hate Crime Laws: Punishment Which Fits the Crime," Annual Survey of American Law (New York: New York University School of Law, 1993); pp. 581-585.
Gambino, Richard Vendetta (New York: Doubleday, 1977).
Gordon, Danielle and Natalie Pardo, "Hate Crimes Strike Changing Suburbs," The Chicago Reporter (September 1997); p1.
Green, Donald P., Dara Z. Strolovitch and Janelle S. Wong, "Defended Neighborhoods, Integration, and Hate Crime," unpublished manuscript, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University (June 23, 1997).
"Gunshots Aimed at Home of Black Family," Associated Press (June 6, 1997).
Halpern, Thomas and Brian Levin, The Limits of Dissent: The Constitutional Status of Armed Civilian Militias (Amherst, Massachusetts: Aletheia Press, 1996).
Hamm, Mark S. Hate Crime: International Perspectives on Causes and Control (Anderson: Cincinnati, 1994).
Jacobs, James B. and Jessica S. Henry, "The Social Construction of a Hate Crime Epidemic," The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (Winter 1996); 366-391.
Jacobs, James B. and Kimberly A. Potter "Hate Crimes: A Critical Perspective," Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, Ed. Michael Tonry (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1997).
Jenness, Valerie and Kendal Broad, Hate Crimes: New Social Movements and the Politics of Violence ( New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1997).
Karl, Jonathan The Right to Bear Arms (New York: Harper, 1995).
Keen, Sam Faces of the Enemy (New York: Harper and Row, 1988).
Keough, William Punchlines (New York: Paragon House, 1990).
Klanwatch Intelligence Report, "Two years After: The Patriot Movement Since Oklahoma City," Spring, 1997; pp.18-20.
Lamy, Philip, Millennium Rage (New York: Plenum Press, 1996).
Langer, Elinor "The American Neo-Nazi Movement Today," The Nation (July 16/23, 1990; pp 82-107.
Levin, Brian "Bias Crimes: A Theoretical and Practical Overview," Stanford Law and Policy Review (Winter 1992-1993); pp 165-171.
Levin, Jack "Teenagers Burn Churches" Boston Globe, Focus Section (December 12, 1996).
Levin, Jack "Visit to a Patriot Potluck" USA Today (March 1, 1997);6A.
Levin, Jack, "N. Irish Racialize 'the Troubles,'" The Boston Herald (July 13, 1997).
Levin, Jack and William J. Levin, The Functions of Discrimination and Prejudice (New York: Harper and Row, 1982).
Levin, Jack and Jack McDevitt Hate Crimes: The Rising Tide of Bigotry and Bloodshed (New York: Plenum, 1993).
Levin, Jack and Jack McDevitt, "The Research Needed to Understand Hate Crime," Chronicle of Higher Education (August 4, 1995a); pp B1-2.
Levin, Jack and Jack McDevitt, "Landmark Study Reveals Hate Crimes Vary Significantly by Offender Motivation," Klanwatch Intelligence Report (August, 1995b); pp. 7-9.
Martin, Susan, "A Cross-Burning is Not Just an Arson: Police Social Construction of Hate Crimes in Baltimore County," Criminology Volume 33, No. 3; pp 303-330.
Not in Our Town II, Public Broadcasting System, 1996.
Office of Juvenile justice and Delinquency Prevention, Report to Congress on Juvenile Hate Crime (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996).
Olzak, Susan, Suzanne Shanahan, and Elizabeth H. McEneaney, "Poverty, Segregation, and Race Riots: 1960 to 1993," American Sociological Review (August, 1996); pp. 590-613.
Paulsen, Monte, "Fires Come in Different Shades of Hate," The State (July 6, 1996);1A.
Pearce, Diana M. "Gatekeepers and Homeseekers: Institutional Patterns in Racial Steering," Social Problems (February, 1979); pp. 325-342.
Schuman, Howard, Charlotte Steeh, and Lawrence Bobo, Racial Attitudes in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
Sherif, Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif, Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma, 1961).
Stossen, Nadine, "Special Penalties Should Apply to Hate Crimes," American Bar Association Journal (May, 1993).
Watts, Meredith, Xenophobia in United Germany (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997).
Weisburd, Steven Bennett and Brian Levin, "'On the Basis of Sex': Recognizing Gender-Based Bias Crimes," Stanford Law and Policy Review (Spring 1994), pp 21-43.
Weiss, Joan, Howard Ehrlich, and Barbara Larcom, "Ethnoviolence at Work," Journal of Intergroup Relations (Winter, 1991-2); pp. 21-33.
Prepared for THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PEACE, VIOLENCE, AND CONFLICT, (Academic Press, 1999).
Developed by the