Understanding Hate Crimes: Acts, Motives, Offenders, Victims, and Justice

255 Pages·2015·4.83 MB·English

by  Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino

Understanding Hate Crimes
Hate crimes and lesser acts of bigotry and intolerance seem to be constants in
today’s world. Since 1990, the federal government has published annual reports
on hate crime incidents in the United States. While the reported numbers are dis-
turbing, even more devastating is the impact of these crimes on individuals, com-
munities, and society.
This comprehensive textbook can serve as a stand-alone source for instructors
and students who study hate crimes and/or other related acts. It invites the reader
to consider relevant social mores and practices as well as criminal justice policies
as they relate to hate crimes by presenting this subject within a broad context.
Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino is Professor of Criminal Justice in the College of
Humanities and Social Sciences at Bridgewater State University. She served
on the Massachusetts Juvenile Justice Advisory Council during the Romney
Administration. As a result of her research and writings on hate crime, she was
invited to Capitol Hill in 2002 to participate in a Congressional Briefing on the
state of hate crime research and public policy in the United States. She recently
co-authored a book, American Corrections, now in its second edition. In addi-
tion, she has published several articles and book chapters on hate crimes in the
areas of the history of hate crime in the United States, affiliation dynamics and
recruitment practices of hate groups, and the nature and scope of anti-Black hate
crimes. Her next project focuses on communities, collective efficacy, and com-
munity response to hate crimes.
Turpin-Petrosino challenges us to engage with some of the fundamental questions
associated with hate crimes, and to think more critically about their nature, cau-
sation, and implications. Written accessibly and authoritatively throughout, this
text underlines the importance of seeing hate crime as a human problem which
requires interventions beyond simply the immediate or the obvious.
Neil Chakraborti, Director of the Leicester
Centre for Hate Studies, University of Leicester, UK
In the last two decades or so hate crime has become a significant global cause
for concern. Drawing upon her own vast experience and expertise in the area,
Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino has written a fascinating and accessible book that offers
a comprehensive and wide-ranging overview of the complex field of hate crime.
She offers insightful analysis of not just the harmful effects of hate, but also of
the motivations and profiles of offenders, both from a US and international per-
spective. I’ve no doubt Understanding Hate Crimes will become a key texts for
academics, students, and practitioners.
Jon Garland, Reader in Criminology,
University of Surrey, UK
Thoughtful, well-written, and broad in scope, this book provides a strong over-
view of hate crime. Researchers and students in a variety of disciplines will find
this text enlightening and accessible. Professor Turpin-Petrosino brings a fresh
perspective to a topic still badly in need of more study.
Phyllis B. Gerstenfeld, J.D., Ph.D.,
California State University, Stanislaus, USA
Understanding Hate
Crimes
Acts, motives, offenders, victims,
and justice
Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino
First published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino
The right of Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Petrosino, Carolyn
Understanding hate crimes: acts, motives, offenders, victims, and justice /
Carolyn Petrosino.—1 Edition.
pages cm
1. Hate crimes—United States. 2. Violence—Psychological aspects.
3. Criminal psychology—United States. I. Title.
HV6773.52.P487 2015
364.150973—dc23
2014036287
ISBN: 978-0-415-48400-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-48401-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-88369-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
Contents
List of figures vi
List of tables vii
Foreword viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
1 Introduction: an overview 1
2 A history of hate in the United States 30
3 The evolution toward modern hate crime laws 51
4 The criminology of hate crime 77
5 Perpetrators: what do we know about them? 103
6 Victims: who are they? 136
7 Criminal justice system responses 170
8 International perspectives 191
9 The future of hate crimes 220
Index 231
Figures
2.1 Distribution of military experience in post-9/11 White
supremacist extremism 40
5.1 Hate crime perpetrators are not alien species 129
6.1 Victim perceptions of offender bias in hate crime, 2003–06
and 2007–11 138
6.2 Religious bias hate crime 2011 156
6.3 Violent crime of disabled versus non-disabled persons 2011 160
6.4 Anti-disability hate crimes by disability type 2010 161
Tables
1.1 Hate crimes statistics 2008: incidents, offenses, victims,
and known offenders by bias motivation 18
1.2 NIBRS data (1995–2000): number of incidents by
location and bias motivation 19
4.1 Allport’s scale of prejudice 79
5.1 Education/occupation of past and present leaders in the
United States hate movement 108
6.1 Reported anti-Black motivated incidents 2000–10 139
6.2 Reported anti-Asian/Pacific Islander motivated incidents
2000–10 144
6.3 Anti-Hispanic incident rates 147
6.4 Anti-Hispanic incident rates in Arizona 150
6.5 Sexual orientation hate crimes 151
6.6 Anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic incidents 155
8.1 Trends in racial violence and anti-Semitism in France
since 2008 200
8.2 Hate crimes in the OSCE region: police reports,
prosecutions, and convictions in 2009, 2010, and 2011 209
Foreword
It is often said that racism “is as American as apple pie.” But that is an insipid met-
aphor because it disrespects a dark history of how White Europeans conquered
North America by devastating the native population and how they then built their
new nation’s economy on the backs of kidnapped Africans who had been turned
into chattel slaves. In perhaps the most poetic Presidential inaugural speech of
all time, on March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln wondered aloud why God saw fit
to send the slaughter of the Civil War to the United States. His conclusion: that
slavery was a kind of original sin for the United States, and all Americans had
to do penance for it. Nineteen days later, Lincoln was killed by the racist John
Wilkes Booth.
One hundred and fifty years have passed since Lincoln’s assassination and his
admonition for penance is all but forgotten. From the White House and Congress
to the federal courts and corporate boardrooms, racism is seldom discussed. What
has not changed, however, is the pervasive character of racism in American crime
and violence. Few criminologists pay attention to this problem. Yet according to
the FBI, 5,800 hate crimes are committed each year in the United States. Sixteen
hate crimes occur each day; one hate crime is committed every ninety minutes.
Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American President, is the target of
some thirty assassination threats a day. Still, criminologists ignore this dangerous
form of criminality.
Thankfully, Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino has our pedagogical back. Herein lays
a comprehensive review of the hate crime phenomenon covering its historical
breadth, its structural correlates, its perpetrators, and its victims. This book will
not only sound an alarm in college classrooms across the country, it may well
inspire a generation of students to do their part in seeking penance for our nation’s
original sin.
Mark S. Hamm
Preface
Teaching a course on hate crime is no easy task. Personally, I don’t think it should
be. The subject itself is disturbing on many levels. But many subjects in criminol-
ogy, such as homicide, terrorism, and sex crimes, are disturbing. Hate crimes,
however, are particularly harmful because they are designed to not only injure
the direct victim, but to send a message to the group the victim represents. The
questions that a course on hate crime must tackle are equally disturbing. How is
it that the possession of a certain social or biological characteristic such as race or
disability becomes condemnatory? How is it that some people come to vilify other
members of the human family, not because of personal experience and factual
data, but because of flawed and destructive ideologies they hold onto out of fear
and ignorance? But teaching such a course is invaluable for students and instruc-
tors alike, as hate crimes serve as a barometer on the state of social relationships
in an increasingly multicultural world, and contributes to discussions about social
justice and egalitarianism.
Instructors of hate crime courses are often challenged when teaching to facili-
tate student understanding of the nature of these crimes, and all of the larger soci-
etal issues that these offenses reflect. When I taught a hate crimes course in 1995,
there were few published works on the subject, and even fewer extensive single
source writings. I spent a lot of time searching for course materials that would
adequately address the myriad complexities of hate crime. Subsequently, I accu-
mulated disparate writings that had to be structured into a coherent framework
for my students. That experience serves as my primary motivation for writing
this book. I wanted to write a comprehensive introductory text for instructors
and students that covers the major aspects of hate crime. The text, therefore, not
only covers the who, what, where, and why of hate crime, but it also includes the
history, legal background, criminology, and official statistics relevant to these
offenses.
A second motivation for the book was to emphasize the very human nature
of hate crimes. It is sometimes too easy for researchers to speak of crime, crimi-
nals, and victims as a collection of statistics, theories, study findings, and policies.
Although it is important to examine crime using rigorous social science methods,
it is equally vital to not lose sight of hate crime as a human problem; with human
actors, human offenders, human victims, and consequently, human sufferings.