Policing Hatred explores the intersection of race and law enforcement in the controversial area of hate crime. The nation’s attention has recently been focused on high-profile hate crimes such as the dragging death of James Byrd and the torture-murder of Matthew Shepard. This book calls attention to the thousands of other individuals who each year are attacked because of their race, religion, or sexual orientation. The study of hate crimes challenges common assumptions regarding perpetrators and victims: most of the accused tend to be white, while most of their victims are not. Policing Hatred is an in-depth ethnographic study of how hate crime law works in practice, from the perspective of those enforcing it. It examines the ways in which the police handle bias crimes, and the social impact of those efforts. Bell exposes the power that law enforcement personnel have to influence the social environment by showing how they determine whether an incident will be charged as a bias crime. Drawing on her unprecedented access to a police hate crime unit, Bell’s work brings to life the stories of female, Black, Latino, and Asian American detectives, in addition to those of their white male counterparts. Policing Hatred also explores the impact of victim’s identity on each officers handling of bias crimes and addresses how the police treat defendants’ First Amendment rights. Bell’s vivid evidence from the field argues persuasively for the need to have the police diligently address even low-level offenses, such as vandalism, given their devastating cumulative effects on society.

In a contemporary setting of increasing social division and marginalisation, Policing Hate Crime interrogates the complexities of prejudice motivated crime and effective policing practices. Hate crime has become a barometer for contemporary police relations with vulnerable and marginalised communities. But how do police effectively lead conversations with such communities about problems arising from prejudice? Contemporary police are expected to be active agents in the pursuit of social justice and human rights by stamping out prejudice and group-based animosity. At the same time, police have been criticised in over-policing targeted communities as potential perpetrators, as well as under-policing these same communities as victims of crime. Despite this history, the demand for impartial law enforcement requires police to change their engagement with targeted communities and kindle trust as priorities in strengthening their response to hate crime. Drawing upon a research partnership between police and academics, this book entwines current law enforcement responses with key debates on the meaning of hate crime to explore the potential for misunderstandings of hate crime between police and communities, and illuminates ways to overcome communication difficulties. This book will be important reading for students taking courses in hate crime, as well as victimology, policing, and crime and community.

Violence motivated by racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and homophobia weaves a tragic pattern throughout American history. Fueled by recent high-profile cases, hate crimes have achieved an unprecedented visibility. Only in the past twenty years, however, has this kind of violence—itself as old as humankind—been specifically categorized and labeled as hate crime. Making Hate a Crime is the first book to trace the emergence and development of hate crime as a concept, illustrating how it has become institutionalized as a social fact and analyzing its policy implications. In Making Hate a Crime Valerie Jenness and Ryken Grattet show how the concept of hate crime emerged and evolved over time, as it traversed the arenas of American politics, legislatures, courts, and law enforcement. In the process, violence against people of color, immigrants, Jews, gays and lesbians, women, and persons with disabilities has come to be understood as hate crime, while violence against other vulnerable victims-octogenarians, union members, the elderly, and police officers, for example-has not. The authors reveal the crucial role social movements played in the early formulation of hate crime policy, as well as the way state and federal politicians defined the content of hate crime statutes, how judges determined the constitutional validity of those statutes, and how law enforcement has begun to distinguish between hate crime and other crime. Hate crime took on different meanings as it moved from social movement concept to law enforcement practice. As a result, it not only acquired a deeper jurisprudential foundation but its scope of application has been restricted in some ways and broadened in others. Making Hate a Crime reveals how our current understanding of hate crime is a mix of political and legal interpretations at work in the American policymaking process. Jenness and Grattet provide an insightful examination of the birth of a new category in criminal justice: hate crime. Their findings have implications for emerging social problems such as school violence, television-induced violence, elder-abuse, as well as older ones like drunk driving, stalking, and sexual harassment. Making Hate a Crime presents a fresh perspective on how social problems and the policies devised in response develop over time. A Volume in the American Sociological Association's Rose Series in Sociology

Why do we know every gory crime scene detail about such victims as Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. and yet almost nothing about the vast majority of other hate crime victims? Now that federal anti-hate-crimes laws have been passed, why has the number of these crimes not declined significantly? To answer such questions, Clara S. Lewis challenges us to reconsider our understanding of hate crimes. In doing so, she raises startling issues about the trajectory of civil and minority rights. Tough on Hate is the first book to examine the cultural politics of hate crimes both within and beyond the law. Drawing on a wide range of sources—including personal interviews, unarchived documents, television news broadcasts, legislative debates, and presidential speeches—the book calls attention to a disturbing irony: the sympathetic attention paid to certain shocking hate crime murders further legitimizes an already pervasive unwillingness to act on the urgent civil rights issues of our time. Worse still, it reveals the widespread acceptance of ideas about difference, tolerance, and crime that work against future progress on behalf of historically marginalized communities.

Since the publication of the first edition of 'Hate Crime' in 2005, interest in this subject as a scholarly and political domain has grown considerably both in Britain and North America, but significantly also in many other parts of the world. As such, this second edition fully revises and updates the content of the first, but within a broader international context. Building on the success of the first edition, this accessible, cross-disciplinary text also includes a wider range of international issues, and addresses new and emerging areas of concern within the field. The book will be of particular interest to academics, undergraduate and postgraduate students, criminal justice practitioners, and policy-makers working within the area of hate crime and related fields of crime, social justice, and diversity. It will also be of value to others who may hold a more general interest in what is undoubtedly a rapidly evolving and increasingly important area of contemporary and global social concern.

Using data from the Uniform Crime Reporting Hate Crime Statistics Program and the National Crime Victimization Survey, this brief highlights the uniqueness of hate or bias crime victimization. It compares these to non-bias crimes and delineates the situational circumstances that distinguish bias from non-bias offending. The nuances of under-reporting shed light on bias-group and victim reasons for not reporting. By examining measurement issues associated with data collection systems, this brief helps explain why eighty-nine percent of participating law enforcement agencies report zero hate crimes each year. It describes patterns and trends in reporting the volume of general bias motivations and specific bias types, as the most prevalent hate crime offense types and most likely victims and offenders. With recommendations to address issues in measurement and under-reporting, including an action plan by the Enhance the Response to Hate Crimes Advisory Committee and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a best practice model by the Oak Creek Police Department, and other promising law enforcement reporting models, this brief provides an increasingly critical resource for law enforcement practitioners and researchers dealing with hate crimes.

The policy makers that govern responses to hate crimes and the institutions that research those crimes have up to this point been separate: policy makers have not taken research into consideration, and researchers have conducted their studies with little reference to policies. This book bridges the gap between the two by bringing together internationally renowned hate crime experts from the domains of academia, policy making, and activism. The contributors provide new perspectives on the nature of hate crimes, their victims, and their perpetrators, exploring a range of themes, challenges, and solutions that have otherwise received little attention. The result is a collection of innovative ways of combating hate crime that combines cutting-edge research with the latest in professional innovations, while remaining accessible to a wide audience.

Public inquiries into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in April of 1993 eventually led to the MacPherson Report of 1999 and charges of institutional racism in the British metropolitan police services. This book engages the key issues emerging from the MacPherson Report, discussing the failure of police to adequately recruit from minority ethnic communities, the relationship between racism and broader aspects or police culture, evaluations of subsequent training programs in "community and race relations" or "policing diversity," concerns that black people are over-policed, and the inadequacy of police response to racist violence. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation : 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

This engaging and thought-provoking text provides an accessible introduction to the subject of hate crime. In a world where issues of hatred and prejudice are creating complex challenges for society and for governments, this book provides an articulate and insightful overview of how such issues relate to crime and criminal justice. It offers comprehensive coverage, including topics such as: Racist hate crime Religiously motivated hate crime Homophobic crime Gender and violence Disablist hate crime

This edited collection brings together many of the world's leading experts, both academic and practitioner, in a single volume handbook that examines key international issues in the field of hate crime. Collectively it examines a range of pertinent areas with the ultimate aim of providing a detailed picture of the hate crime 'problem' in different parts of the world. The book is divided into four parts: An examination, covering theories and concepts, of issues relating to definitions of hate crime, the individual and community impacts of hate crime, the controversies of hate crime legislation, and theoretical approaches to understanding offending. An exploration of the international geography of hate, in which each chapter examines a range of hate crime issues in different parts of the world, including the UK, wider Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Reflections on a number of different perspectives across a range of key issues in hate crime, examining areas including particular issues affecting different victim groups, the increasingly important influence of the Internet, and hate crimes in sport. A discussion of a range of international efforts being utilised to combat hate and hate crime. Offering a strong international focus and comprehensive coverage of a wide range of hate crime issues, this book is an important contribution to hate crime studies and will be essential reading for academics, students and practitioners interested in this field.