Is There Such a Thing as a Hate Crime Paradigm? An Integrative Review of Bias-Motivated Violent Victimization and Offending, Its Effects and Underlying Mechanisms

Abstract

Despite the growing number of bias-motivated violence studies, the evidence available remains limited, and there are several gaps in our understanding of the complex relationship between negative attitudes and biased violence. In addition, the literature on this topic has many facets and nuances and is often contradictory, so it is difficult to obtain a clear overall picture. Research has made good progress in this area, but it still suffers from a lack of systematization and from a highly segmented approach to victimization and offending. To contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the subject, this integrative narrative review provides a critical reappraisal of the theoretical, methodological, and empirical research from a systemic perspective. To this end, 134 academic publications on personality and social psychology, clinical psychology, sociology, criminology, and related disciplines were examined. The evidence suggests that although bias-motivated violence shares characteristics with other types of offensive behavior, it is actually a unique phenomenon due to its background rooted in prejudice, identity, and attitudes in which the intersection of individual, psychosocial, and ecological factors is especially relevant. The impact on the victim and their community is diverse, but it has a series of distinctive severe psychological consequences that significantly reduce the probability that incidents will be reported. Here, we present a series of findings and reflections on bias-motivated violence and provide recommendations for research, practice, and policy.

How the COVID-19 pandemic hit crime in Barcelona: Analysis of variation in crime trends

“…Not all population groups and victim types are as likely to report to the same extent under normal conditions, with differences known to exist between the young and elderly, women experiencing intimate partner violence, and minority and non-minority groups (Díaz-Faes & Pereda, 2022; Goudriaan & Nieuwbeerta, 2007; Katz et al, 2021; Leon et al, 2022); moreover, these differences may have worsened during the pandemic. Additional barriers to a victim's willingness to report interpersonal crimes during the pandemic have been found, including fear of infection, lockdown requirements, disrupted resources, how to report, and subsequent alternatives, which may preferentially affect isolated children and adolescents, women, or the elderly living in nursing homes.…”

Experiences of Bias Victimization Among People With Intellectual Disabilities

“…The way in which the concept of hate crime has been constructed fosters the idea that there is no relationship between victim and perpetrator (Díaz-Faes & Pereda, 2022). This assumption may contribute to obscuring the presence of bias violence in the context of the family or among friends and acquaintances.…”

“…Under the hate crime classification, the intersectionality of bias violence tends to be overlooked due to the focus on criminality and the individual or hierarchical distinction between categories, which means that incidents are classified only under specific headings (Chakraborti & Garland, 2012). This may blur the fact that the victims may have multiple social categories or stigmatized identities related to the bias event (Díaz-Faes & Pereda, 2022)—for instance, ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, or social class, which are produced through each other. Intersectionality posits that multiple social identities interact at different levels of individual experience, reflecting the intertwining macro systems of oppression and privilege (e.g., ableism, ethnocentrism, racism, or heterosexism) informing the person’s experience (Nash, 2008).…”

“…Victims of bias violence experience detrimental effects on their health and well-being, such as psychological distress, depression, anxiety, fear, post-traumatic stress disorder, feelings of vulnerability, negative behavioral health outcomes, and an increased concern for crime and safety (Díaz-Faes & Pereda, 2022). The life experience of people with ID is subject to the influence of cultural and social drivers of poorer health, such as oppression, stigma, ableism, and implicit negative attitudes (Ditchman et al, 2016).…”

Returning to the Wild West: Jewish Violence, Social Reaction, Self-Help and Social Control

“…Most tests have been limited methodologically, and a relatively small number of contexts have been examined (Wolfowicz et al 2023). Additionally, as the above review demonstrates, there are even fewer studies that determine if and how violence may represent a form of social control by analysing how it responds to source-grievance crimes and formal responses both to the source-grievance crimes and the response crimes (Díaz-Faes and Pereda 2022).…”