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Hate Crime Statutes

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Criminology ((BRIEFSPOLICI))

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Abstract

Hate is an intense emotion that requires an object, primarily a person to direct its wrath. When hate is combined with prejudice and expressed as conduct, the result can be devastating to direct, vicarious victims, and society. The legacy of hate crime is not novel and steeped in American history. However, contemporary hate crime statutes that proscribe hate-motivated behavior against predefined groups are relatively new. Definitions of hate crimes vary with some comprised of deontological definitions; others with statutory definition of preselected groups and others incorporating codified definitions of criminal conduct. Several factors converge that contribute to a serious underestimation of the prevalence of hate crimes including victim and police underreporting, police misclassification, and variations in state statutory definitions of status groups. Observation of victim reports suggests hate crimes are a much more prevalent than the UCR annual hate crime estimates reveal. Looking beyond the temporal nature of contemporary hate crime statutes indicates continuity between past and present hate crimes particularly as it relates to historic victims of hate. Deterrence Policies designed to reduce hate motivated violence should begin with understanding the legacy of hate crimes within American culture.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Federal civil rights statutes limitations included: a narrow view of the interstate commerce clause; language primarily directed towards limiting the Ku Klux Klan violence; limited federalism and deference to states for criminal prosecution; and the absence of resources to enforce hate crime laws.

  2. 2.

    See Appendix for List of FBI bias indicators.

  3. 3.

    Inclusive of the first Civil Rights Act in 1871 with specific provision provided for in 18 U.S.C. 241; 18 U.S.C. 242; 42 U.S.C. 1983 and a century later 18 U.S.C. sec 245.

  4. 4.

    NIBRS, a subdivision of the UCR program collects and provides rich incident level data on the date, time, place, offender and victim and situational characteristics in NIBRS participating municipalities; however NIBRS does not reflect a representative sampling of crime in the U.S.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA

    Frank S. Pezzella

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  1. Frank S. Pezzella
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Correspondence to Frank S. Pezzella .

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Pezzella, F.S. (2017). Introduction. In: Hate Crime Statutes. SpringerBriefs in Criminology(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40842-2_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40842-2_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40840-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40842-2

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