Hate crime legislation is relatively
new. Most laws relating to hate crimes were passed in the last 15 years. Police, school, and community responses are still being formulated and instituted. Currently, most hate crime and hate violence research is
directed around the perpetrator and the victim. Many of the best known studies on hate crimes are about the characteristics of the perpetrator, and studies of the victim. As long as perpetrator and victim
characteristics are the prime focus of hate crime research, prevention strategies are likely to focus on the psychological makeup of the individuals who are involved in hate crimes without a similar examination of conditions in the
community that can be changed or ameliorated to reduce the level of hate crime. Unfortunately, the notorious underreporting and the unreliability of reports of hate crimes are likely to deter scholarly analyses designed to
affect policies and practices for a long time to come.
The exception to the rule are studies that have been conducted by Ali Modarres from the Pat Brown Institute at California State University in Los Angeles and Karen Umemoto at
the University of Hawaii. Using data that is admittedly suspect because of major differences in reporting within the geographical boundaries of the county, the researchers nevertheless drew some conclusions that show the
potential importance of sociological studies.
Their methodology was to plot where incidents occurred within the county on a map and include basic demographic information about the perpetrator and victim. They then analyzed
several characteristics of the area where the crimes occurred. The characteristics included but were not limited to; demographic changes in the area, unemployment rates, presence of parks, presence of gay/lesbian/transgender
gathering places, and diversity in the area. They identified a number of factors that deserve further investigation. For example, they found that people of all different ethnicities and income levels were willing to travel
out of their communities to areas where gays, lesbians and transgendered people were likely to frequent to attack them. They found hate crimes were more likely to occur in narrow bands along the border between communities
where there were differences in the economic status and ethnicity of the residents. They also found that when the dominant ethnic group in a community begins to lose its numerical dominance there were increased hate crimes
between those dominant groups and the groups threatening their dominance. The study points to societal conditions impacting the nature and perhaps the frequency of hate crimes.
Reliable studies could form the basis
for requiring social impact reports on the implementation of relevant policies and on the expenditure of public funds in much the same way as environmental impact reports are now used. The impact of public policies, housing
developments, roads and other public works, the location of schools and parks, commercial zoning, etc. on intergroup relations should be a factor in their approval and adoption. Too often blunders are made simply because the
decision making process does not include social impact analysis. For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development decided to integrate public housing developments across the nation as a way to overcome making
housing assignments based on considerations of race and ethnicity. The rapid change of policy inevitably led to friction between newcomers and longtime residents of public housing throughout the nation. If there was a
mechanism in place that that required the Department to examine the impact of its change of policy on intergroup relations, the need to prepare existing residents and staff for the change would have been obvious.
As a state that
no longer has a majority population, California needs to take the lead in developing mechanisms for preventing intergroup tensions. Much is yet to be done in schools, with law enforcement and in the community to prevent and
respond to hate crimes effectively. Working on the perceptions and attitudes of perpetrators and potential perpetrators is one piece of the puzzle, but there is another piece to hate violence work. Similar attention
needs to be given to the societal factors impacting intergroup tensions leading to hate violence and hate crimes.
