Abstract
Drawing on Jenness and Grattet’s (2001) typology of hate crime law as well as theories about the relationship between minority group status and victimization, this analysis examines how different definitions of hate crime produce variation in the reported prevalence of anti-racial and anti-ethnic hate crime. This study uses data from the Uniform Crime Reports and a panel modeling structure to examine the factors that contribute to reported anti-Black and anti-Hispanic hate crime levels. It was hypothesized that broader hate crime definitions would result in greater levels of reported hate crime; however, the results suggest that the definition of hate crime influences the reported prevalence of anti-Hispanic hate crime, but that variation in law does not affect anti-Black hate crime once demographic and other structural characteristics are taken into account. Future research and policy should consider how these differences in definition could influence the handling of hate crime cases at all levels.
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Notes
The terms hate and bias crime are often used interchangeably. Hate crime is the term most commonly used and as such has been chosen as the main term to be used in this manuscript; however, because the terms, while used interchangeably, are distinct in definition the analysis accounts for these differences.
Institutional vandalism involves “knowingly vandalizing, defacing or otherwise damaging” a place of religious worship, cemetery, school, or other structure (ADL 2011).
Because the election data is only available for every other year, in order to estimate the values for the inter-survey years the previous year’s values were used. In other words, the value for 2001 was taken from 2000, the value for 2003 from the 2002 survey, etc.
Together, these four countries account for approximately 70 % of Hispanic immigration and about 25 % of total immigration each year.
Correlations were examined to determine the extent of the relationship between the compliance controls and the dependent variables. All relationships were significant, but of only moderate strength (0.16 to 0.25). Additionally, the correlations between the compliance controls and urbanization was non-significant, however, the correlation between the percent of agencies reporting a non-zero count and Southern states was significant and negative (−0.16) suggesting that Southern states may be more likely to report zero hate crime counts.
A population average model was chosen over the more restricted fixed effects in an effort to increase the variation on the predictors related to state laws.
The effect of the exposure term is estimated by the model, but the coefficient is constrained to one. This allows for the effects to be interpreted in terms of marginal or average effects.
Because the UCR data covers multiple years and are being examined using panel models instead of as a pooled dataset, it was possible for states to adopt a hate crime statute during the course of the study period. Indeed, this 5.6 % of cases represent states that adopted a hate crime statute during the course of this study.
Some states made changes to their hate crime statutes during the study period. Thus, these percentages do not add up to 100 % because some states made changes in the hate crime statutes.
These indicators were added one at a time to test a possible mediation effect implied by Blalock (1967) and other minority threat researchers. There was no support for a mediating effect found for either dependent variable. (Models not shown.)
An examination of the correlation between the percent of state legislators who are African-American and the reporting controls suggests that while there is a significant bivariate relationship (r = −0.26) between them it is negative.
The NCVS does not provide for year to year estimates of hate crime beyond the national level.
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Statutes Cited
Delaware 11 Del. C §1304 (1995).
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Hate Crime Sentencing Enhancement Act of 1994, 28 U.S.C.A §994 (1994).
Michigan Penal Code §750.1476 (1988)
New Jersey Stat. §2C 16-1 (1995).
Oregon Rev. Stat. §166.155 (1981).
Oregon Rev. Stat. §166.165 (1981).
Tennessee Code Ann. §39-17-309(a) (1989).
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Stacey, M. The Effect of Law on Hate Crime Reporting: The Case of Racial and Ethnic Violence. Am J Crim Just 40, 876–900 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-015-9289-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-015-9289-3