Hate in Context

Week 1: Defining Hate Crime

Violeta Haas

Department of Political Science

School of Social Sciences and Philosophy

Trinity College Dublin

Today

  1. Part I — What is a hate crime?
  2. Part II — Underrecording & underreporting
  3. Part III — Why hate crimes are different

Part I — What is a hate crime?

Activity: build a definition

  1. Find your group by symbol: ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣

  2. Draft a short definition of hate crime

    • Submit via TCDpolls: Blackboard → Week 01 → Hate Crime Definitions
    • Start your answer with your symbol
    • 8–10 minutes
    • There are no wrong or right answers

Your Hate Crime Definitions

  • Was it hard to agree?
  • What was the smallest common denominator?
  • How policy-applicable is your definition?

Let’s take a look at your definitions!

Official Definitions

Police/Legal numbers look comparable…

Ireland · Garda

OSCE ODIHR hate crime numbers for Ireland

Germany · BKA

OSCE ODIHR hate crime numbers for Germany

United States · FBI

OSCE ODIHR hate crime numbers for the United States

Spain · Código Penal

OSCE ODIHR hate crime numbers for Spain

Source: hatecrime.osce.org (police-recorded)

…but definitions disagree

shared distinctive

Ireland · Garda Germany · BKA United States · FBI Spain · Código Penal
Act criminal offence and incidents criminal offence criminal offence criminal offence
Characteristics* + age + social status, appearance — + ideology, aporophobia, illness, age
Group status actual or perceived actual or perceived actual or perceived actual or perceived

* In common: race / ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender (identity)

Label Typical emphasis
Hate crime Criminal act + bias motivation / protected characteristic
Hate speech Expression; legal and platform thresholds vary widely
Hate incident Broader recording (often police / civil society); not always charged

Scholars add dimensions…

It involves acts of violence and intimidation, usually directed toward already stigmatized and marginalized groups. As such, it is a mechanism of power, intended to reaffirm the precarious hierarchies that characterize a given social order. It attempts to recreate simultaneously the threatened (real or imagined) hegemony of the perpetrator’s group and the “appropriate” subordinate identity of the victim’s group.

Perry (2001: 10), in Perry (2014)

…but also disagree

…the foundations of much hate crime policy and scholarship have been built on the assumption that these are exclusively “majority versus minority” crimes. However well-intentioned, such an assumption fails to account for the acts of hate, prejudice and bigotry committed by minorities against fellow minorities, or indeed against those who might be described as majority group members.

Chakraborti (2014: 19)

…and do not reflect police categories

Germany · BKA

BKA bias theme categories with Deutschfeindlich highlighted

United States · FBI

FBI bias types with anti-White highlighted

So what?

  • You disagree
  • Police/Law disagree, on type of act and protected characteristics
  • Scholars disagree, on power, hierarchy, and who counts as a victim

What this means

→ every paper needs a definition and a generalizability-statement

→ also means we will see hardly any comparative cross-country work in this course

Part II — Underrecording & underreporting

Rising acceptance

Small-multiple line charts: share saying homosexuality should be accepted, 2002–2019, ten countries

…yet hate crime rises

US FBI reported hate crime incidents by bias category, 2015–2024

Who records hate crime?

Actors involved in hate crime data collection:

  • Law enforcement agencies
  • Federal agencies
  • (Regional) government agencies
  • Human rights organizations
  • Community-based organizations & activists
  • Research institutions
  • Online platforms and technology companies

Two different problems

Underreporting

Victims (or witnesses) never tell the police / survey / platform

  • Fear of retaliation
  • Lack of trust in law enforcement
  • Perceived ineffectiveness of reporting
  • Limited awareness
  • Inadequate reporting infrastructures
  • Concerns about privacy

Underrecording

The event is known, but not flagged as hate crime

  • Inconsistent definitions
  • Inadequate recording infrastructure
  • Lack of training
  • Biases & stereotyping

Part III — Why hate crimes are different

Effects beyond the immediate victim

Why treat hate crimes different from otherwise similar non-bias offences?

  • Affect the immediate victim
  • Send message to the victim’s (perceived) community
  • Impair intergroup relations
  • Question democratic values (inclusion, equity, justice)

Outlook

Disclaimer: Two families of explanation

Individual-level

Psychological traits & offender behaviour

Cognitive and affective processes that drive perpetrators to commit hate crime

Contextual

Would-be perpetrators’ social environment

Political, cultural, sociological, and economic conditions that make bias-motivated violence more or less likely

Next week: demographic change

Week 2 (Mon 21 / Wed 23 Sep) — demographic change and hate crime.

Required readings

  • Cikara, M., Fouka, V., & Tabellini, M. (2022). Hate crime towards minoritized groups increases as they increase in size-based rank. Nature Human Behaviour, 6(11), 1537–1544.
  • Hangartner, D., Dinas, E., Marbach, M., Matakos, K., & Xefteris, D. (2019). Does exposure to the refugee crisis make natives more hostile? American Political Science Review, 113(2), 442–455.
  • Dancygier, R., Egami, N., Jamal, A., & Rischke, R. (2022). Hate crimes and gender imbalances: Fears over mate competition and violence against refugees. American Journal of Political Science, 66(2), 501–515.

Weekly comments start (due Sunday 20 Sep, 11:59 pm).

Reminder: position-paper sign-up

  • Blackboard Groups — one week only; max 3 students per week
  • Closes Friday 18 September 2026, 11:59 pm
  • Paper due Sunday 11:59 pm before that week’s Monday seminar

Questions?

Goodbye!

See you Monday — Week 2.