Abstract
Hate crime has gained heightened attention in criminology recently, with a particular focus on research detailing its impacts on direct victims and the communities to which they belong. Despite this growing body of work, there remains some disputation as to what crimes should be labelled as ‘hate crimes’, and how legislatures ought to address its elevated harms. Drawing on over a decade of empirical research by the author (and others), this article proposes a framework for understanding hate crime that synthesizes criminological research with an expanded theorization of the harm principle that draws, and builds upon, four of Iris Young's faces of oppression: violence, marginalization, powerlessness and cultural imperialism. The article argues that conceptualizing hate crime as ‘group oppression’ provides a more comprehensive framework for understanding its distinctiveness as a category of offending, from which policymakers can adopt more effective mechanisms to address both its individual and structural consequences
Introduction
Hate crimes are offences that either demonstrate hostility towards the victim's protected characteristic(s) or are (partly) motivated by such animus. Social scientific understanding of the nature, dynamics and impacts of hate crime has significantly increased over the past 20–30 years, as criminologists have sought to generate new knowledge through empirical and theoretical research to expound on what makes hate crime a specific category of offending (Chakraborti and Garland, 2012; Díaz-Faes and Pereda, 2022; Perry, 2001). Despite this growing knowledge base, there is often a disjuncture between understandings on its causes and consequences on the one hand, and the methods employed to tackle it on the other.
This article outlines a new framework for understanding what makes hate crime a distinct type of offending and, in turn, how legislation and criminal justice interventions might better attend to its causes and consequences. Policymakers and scholars in the Global North have often justified the adoption of specific hate crime policies and laws by focusing on the perceived harms caused by prejudice motivated offending (Lawrence, 1999). Arguments have frequently revolved around the concept of harm–culpability, in which the level of criminal culpability for any given offence is determined by the extent of harm it causes, combined with the degree of blameworthiness associated with its commission (Iganski, 2001; Lawrence, 1999). In relation to harm, Iganski (2001) popularized the notion that ‘hate crimes hurt more’ owing to their more violent and targeted nature. The idea that hate crimes inflict greater harm than similar non-hate offences has gained substantial traction among domestic and international legislatures, supported by a growing body of evidence demonstrating that they are more likely to involve physical injury, as well as resulting in more profound emotional harm to both individual victims and those who share their identity characteristics. It is this rippling effect of hate crime that Iganski terms ‘waves of harm’ (Fetzer and Pezzella, 2019; Holder, 2024; Iganski, 2001).
Documenting these harms has been useful in supporting laws that enhance penalties for hate crime; as per conventional retributive theories of justice (Al-Hakim and Dimock, 2012; Lawrence, 1999). However, as this article argues, such a focus has been overly narrow in that there has been scant empirical or theoretical exploration of hate crime's broader social, cultural or structural harms. This article sets out to evidence such harms by employing an expanded theorization of the harm principle in criminology that frames hate crime as a form of group-based oppression. This framework draws and builds upon Iris Young's (2011) ‘faces of oppression’ to illustrate how hate crimes not only result in disproportionate levels of violence that predict elevated physical and emotional harms, but are also directly implicated in social and structural harms that can be understood in terms of marginalization, powerlessness and cultural imperialism. These intersecting layers of harm are used as the basis for a framework that seeks to more comprehensively understand, and in turn, underpin state responses to hate crime. In the final part of this article, I briefly outline what these responses might look like.
Conceptualizations of hate crime in criminology
Before setting out this new framework and its potential benefits and limitations, it is helpful to reflect on several of the key criminological conceptualizations of hate crime that have been established within the field of hate studies. Of seminal influence has been Perry's (2001) analysis of hate crime as structured action, a process termed ‘doing difference’. She states that hate crimes are: [A]cts of violence and intimidation, usually directed towards already stigmatized and marginalized groups. As such, it is a mechanism of power and oppression, intended to reaffirm the precarious hierarchies that characterize a given social order. It attempts to re-create simultaneously the threatened (real or imagined) hegemony of the perpetrators group and the ‘appropriate’ subordinate identity of the victim's group. (Perry, 2001: 10)
However, a newer wave of scholars have critiqued Perry's conceptualization of hate crime, as they seek to provide a more-inclusive definition of hate crime to ensure that vulnerable groups are not excluded from its ambit, and in turn, its legislative protection. Most prominently, Chakraborti and Garland (2012) argue that definitions of hate crime that focus on identifying identity groups may also inadvertently obscure the fact that many people do not exclusively belong to a single community, whereas prejudices often intersect across multiple identities. Instead, they advocate for a ‘vulnerability-approach’ that ‘acknowledges the heightened level of risk posed to certain groups or individuals that can arise through a complex interplay of different factors, including hate, prejudice, hostility, unfamiliarity, discomfort or simply opportunism or convenience’ (Chakraborti and Garland, 2012: 506). Their approach is designed to broaden Perry's definition of hate crime as acts that are ‘intended’ to reaffirm subordinate identities by encompassing individuals who are especially prone to disproportionate levels of abuse and who are more vulnerable to its consequences (see also Harel and Parchomovsky, 1999). This approach, they argue, reduces the risk of creating hierarchies of victimization by designating specific groups as deserving of legislative protection.
Notwithstanding questions relating to whether Perry's reference to ‘intended’ can be read as referring to broader mens rea elements such as awareness or recklessness (Walters, 2014b), the concept of vulnerability is not without its own limitations. The first concern relates to its breadth. The inclusion of risk factors such as unfamiliarity, discomfort or simply opportunism or convenience although relevant to explaining how hate crimes often occur, are also applicable to most types of crime. Almost any individual, at various points in their life, can become situationally vulnerable to crime owing to socio-economic factors or situational contexts. Do these contextual factors make someone different or does the conceptualization propose that identity of difference predisposes individuals to the vulnerability of victimization? I believe that Chakraborti and Garland refer to the latter position; as such, what amounts to someone being different becomes central to defining when a crime is a hate crime. However, if someone can be perceived as different depending on their social, cultural, economic or spatial situations, then almost anyone potentially falls within the scope of hate crime victimization including paedophiles or sex offenders, as has been the case in Australia (Mason, 2014).
Mason's (2014) ‘politics of justice’ seeks to address the issue of over-inclusivity, by proposing that policymakers add a third step when determining which characteristics should fall within the scope of hate crime by assessing whether an identity group can make a legitimate claim to ‘affirmation, equality, and respect’ based on whether they have a ‘justifiable or legal claim to social acceptance or state affirmation based on the attribute that sets them apart’ (what she refers to as a ‘politics of justice’, Mason, 2014: 176). In so doing, Mason argues, the state could establish a ‘boundary around forms of difference that warrant legal protection’ (Mason, 2014: 176). Yet Mason's approach is also open to the criticism that determinations of what is a justifiable legal claim for social acceptance are subject to moral judgements about whose vulnerability is worthy of inclusion based on whether their difference can lay claims to affirmation, equality and respect. Those judgements are likely to be informed by value-laden assessments by politicians as to whether certain groups are ‘legitimate’, leading to a hierarchization of such claims.
The aim of this article is not to undermine the significant value of the conceptualizations offered by these scholars. Rather, it seeks to provide an alternative framework for understanding and operationalizing hate crime that draws together criminological and victimological knowledge that more coherently address its causes and intersecting consequences. In establishing a new framework, I argue that it is important to reconsider what makes hate crime a distinct type of crime worthy of its own criminological categorization. In answering that question, we need to return to an analysis of why hate crimes hurts more.
The distinct harms of hate crime
There is a general consensus among legal scholars that for conduct to be subject to criminal law, it must be perceived as a public wrong, and its prohibition must be deemed necessary to prevent it within society (Duff, 2018; Husak, 2008). In most liberal societies, the criminalization of conduct has historically been linked to the harm principle (Duff, 2018). In essence, the principle dictates that citizens are endowed with free will and should be allowed to act as they choose, free from state interference, unless their actions harm others (Mill, 1860). Although seemingly quite straightforward, defining what constitutes harmful conduct is not without its challenges. Liberal perspectives on criminalization have traditionally taken a narrow view on what harmful conduct ought to fall within the purview of the criminal law, focusing on ‘primary harms’ with a direct cause-and-effect relationship (Husak, 2008). These often entail an assessment of the types of physical or psychological injuries that are inflicted through different types of conduct. These types of harm have been the focus of legal scholars who have critiqued the use of hate crime laws and their attendant penalty enhancements (Lawrence, 1999).
Beyond these obvious harms lie countless discrete acts that may harm individuals, communities, society and even the environment, in various and often remote ways. Defining and measuring such harms is not without difficulty and for this reason they often fall outside the purview of criminalization. As Duff (2018: 77) notes, there is the ‘problem of determining just what kinds of consequence [are] relevant’. Duff argues that because harm is potentially nebulous and unmeasurable, we ought to discard the harm principle and instead view public wrongs in terms of civil order. In relation to hate speech, Duff and Marshall (2018) argue that a public wrong is one that breaches a duty owed to a whole community and its citizens. Citizenship, they theorize, creates a social bond of fellowship. Hate speech (or for our purposes, hate crime) ought to be understood as a specific type of ‘public’ wrong because it amounts to a ‘denial of fellowship’ that creates ‘civic hatred’, which manifests as a refusal to respect the victim's dignity (Duff and Marshall, 2018).
Understanding hate crime as a form of civic hatred frames the concept in terms of duties and rights. Although recognizing hate crime as an affront to human dignity is important (Neller, 2023), it does not fully explicate the myriad and distinct individual, community and structural harms that hate crimes cause. If we fail to identify these intersecting harms, the state risks ignoring deeper societal issues that are causal to such offences.
How, then, do we identify and measure such harms? One approach is to frame harm in terms of personal interests. Feinberg noted that harm can be understood as ‘the thwarting, setting back, or defeating of an interest’, he explained further that ‘[o]ne's interests… consist of all those things in which one has at stake’ (Feinberg, 1984: 33). Although helpful in our understanding of when personal interests become matters that need the protection of the criminal law, it has not always been clear what ‘one has at stake’ actually means. Simester and von Hirsh (2009) have elaborated by asserting that an individual interest's encompass assets or capabilities that contribute to the quality of that person's life. These are essential for achieving self-realization and what political philosophers have often referred to as ‘living a good life’ (Raz, 2003). In essence, in a democratic society that prioritizes individual freedom, people possess self-direction, which means they are free to make decisions that impact their social standing. However, in order to effectuate self-direction, one must have access to the capacities and resources that enable self-realization.
Conceptualizing harm in terms of personal interests expands the lens through which the criminal law normatively plays a role in protecting certain members in society whose capacities and resources are restricted through hate-based criminality. Criminalization, in this context, serves to maximize the benefit for the least privileged members of society. 1 In comprehending harms as the restriction of personal interests, we are able to move beyond conceptualizing the impacts of hate crime as diminishing victims’ individual autonomy (i.e. their right to be free from violence), by focusing in equal measure on victims’ capacity to participate in society freely and equally (Simester and von Hirsch, 2009). The question remains, though, whether we can accurately measure how hate crimes restrict the personal interests of individuals where these extend to a restriction on obtaining assets and resources that enable them to live a good life. Without empirical evidence of such harms, it is difficult to justify criminalization under the harm principle beyond that of research showing incidents are more likely to be violent in nature, resulting in elevated emotional distress.
Flow chart illustrating the process of hate crime harms.
The distinct harms of hate crimes 4 .
Framing the harms of hate crime as group oppression
To understand what makes hate crime distinct, we therefore need to fully outline its intersecting micro, meso and macro components. First, it is helpful to articulate a framework from which each component can be anchored.
To elucidate the oppressive effects of hatred, I turn to Iris Young's notion of the ‘faces of oppression’. Young (2011) conceptualized oppression as the institutional constraint on a social group's self-development. To be oppressed, in her view, is to occupy a social position that prevents us from realizing our full potential or from living a good life. Group-based oppression is embedded in what Young calls ‘unquestioned norms’, symbols and assumptions that underpin the rules and regulations that govern society. Young asserts that there are five ways in which social groups face group oppression: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence. While exploitation (understood by Young in terms of labour) can be linked to subordinated individual's experiences of discrimination and prejudice, it is the latter four faces of oppression that are most useful in articulating the harms of hate crime (for other applications see, Ferguson and Mechthild, 2009). 2
Social groups are defined by Young (2011: 43) as ‘a collective of persons differentiated from at least one other group by cultural forms, practices, or way of life’. Communities of people can also coalesce through sociality, by sharing a locality, and fundamentally to hate crime by sharing an identity characteristic (Walters et al., 2020b). Young notes that categories of people based on characteristics such as gender, ethnicity or disability are important to acknowledge because they are ‘positioned by social structures that constrain and enable individual lives in ways largely beyond their individual control’ (2001: 6). Identifying and comparing social groups, she argues, is ‘necessary in order to discover such social structures and make judgments that inequalities grounded in those structures are unjust’ (Young, 2001: 6). Indeed, the shared experiences of a group can shape their experience of the world around them. Where that experience is one of ‘shared suffering’, group members can experience a strong affinity with one another, even when individuals reside on the other side of the world (Bell and Perry, 2015; Walters et al., 2020b). Those groups whose social practices, norms and values come into conflict (at least perceivably) with dominant or majority group members of society are most susceptible to group-based oppression (Perry, 2001, 2002). Below I expand upon Young's faces of oppression drawing on empirical evidence to illustrate the intersecting and mutually reinforcing individual, community and social harms of hate crime.
Violence
Oppression as violence fits neatly with conventional understandings of hate crime. Young explains that systemic violence involves members of certain groups living with the ‘knowledge that they must fear random, unprovoked attacks on their persons or property’, which is aimed at damaging, humiliating or destroying said members (2011: 61). Groups that experience disproportionate levels of physical and emotional violence live with the constant fear that they might be targeted at any time and almost in any space (Home Office, 2020). However, although some groups in society may face a higher risk of violence, the level and impact of that violence tend to be disproportionately greater when individuals are targeted specifically because of their group identity – compared with similar acts of violence that lack a hate-based motive. For example, analysis of data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) has found that violence against the person accounts for 45% of hate crime incidents compared with only 18% of overall CSEW crime (Home Office, 2020). The same data showed that 17% of hate crimes result in injury compared with 9% of non-hate crimes (Home Office, 2020). Similar findings have appeared in US-based studies showing that hate-based assaults, for example, are more likely to result in serious forms of injury than non-hate assaults (Cheng et al., 2013; Fetzer and Pezzella, 2019). 3
In addition to research suggesting that hate crimes tend to be more violent and brutal in nature, there have been multiple studies that show that they are also much more likely to cause psychological trauma (Herek et al., 1999). For instance, Herek et al.'s (1999) research into homophobic hate crime showed that lesbian and gay victims were more likely to report greater levels of anger, depression, post-traumatic stress and anxiety compared with victims of non-hate crimes. Victims of hate crimes were also more likely to be fearful of future incidents of crime, while additionally experiencing greater perceived vulnerability, compared with victims of non-hate crimes. Similar findings have been replicated across groups and jurisdictions (Home Office, 2020: see also Fetzer and Pezzella, 2019; Holder, 2024; Iganski and Lagou, 2015; McDevitt et al., 2001; Wenger et al., 2022). In fact, Díaz-Faes and Pereda's (2022: 946) recent meta-analysis of research on impacts concluded that ‘[b]ias victimization experiences are related to negative physical, behavioral and mental health outcomes… [which have] heterogeneous and distinctive psychological consequences for the victims.’
Why is hate crime more traumatizing to victims and communities?
While it is important to note that hate crimes are more likely to cause greater level of primary harm, understanding why becomes central to framing it as a distinct category of offending. This question underpinned the aims and objectives of the Sussex Hate Crime Project (SHCP) which entailed 21 separate studies involving over 3000 participants in England and Wales (Paterson et al., 2018). Drawing on social identity theory and intergroup emotions theory, the researchers hypothesized that group members’ reactions to hate crime would likely be directly affected by their shared identity characteristics (Mackie and Smith, 2015). Proponents of this approach assert that emotions are embedded in our identities. The sharing of identity traits forms part of our sense of self and how we relate to others. When a social identity is activated, such as where a group member comes under attack, our appraisal of that event is experienced in terms of the implications it has for the group as a whole. Thus, events that are positive or negative for the group can be felt vicariously by all members of that group, as if the event had happened to them. Incidents that are aimed at one group member can therefore trigger certain emotional and behavioural responses across the entire group. The stronger the group identity is felt, the more meaningful incidents become to the well-being of the entire group.
Using survey and experimental designs, researchers were able to measure numerous variables that were predictive, and in some studies causal, to a list of emotional and behavioural impacts of hate crime. Analyses in each of the studies showed that respondents’ group-based identity was intrinsically linked to how they responded to experiencing or learning about others' experiences of hate crime. Key to understanding direct and indirect experiences of hate crime is the perception of threat that group members experience when someone is the victim of a hate crime. The perceived threats are typically physical (fearing for your personal safety) and, central to the framework developed in this article, symbolic (threats to a group's norms, values and ways of life). These two interlinking perceptions result in certain emotional traumas that are distinct to hate crime.
Two main emotions were predicted by the threats posed by hate crime: anxiety and anger. These emotional responses are typically heightened and longer lasting when compared with responses to similar non-hate crimes (Paterson et al., 2019b). A third emotion commonly experienced by victims of hate crime was shame. Shame occurs as a consequence of individuals feeling a sense of blame for their own experiences of victimization, often resulting in internalized feelings of prejudice, which the authors found may also predict a desire for violent retaliation (see also Lantz et al., 2024 on increased prejudicial attitudes as an outcome of hate crime). This means that hate crimes, unlike most parallel offences, are internalized by some victims who process their experience as a form of stigma that diminishes their self-worth (Paterson et al., 2024).
Most importantly, the studies revealed that members of targeted groups experience these emotional responses, whether as direct victims of hate or indirectly through knowing the victim (Paterson et al., 2019a) or learning about incidents via media outlets (Paterson et al., 2019b). In a similar quantitative study, Wenger et al. (2022) also found that indirect victimization was correlated with higher levels of depression. As Perry and Alvi (2012) have previously emphasized, hate crimes are symbolic events that serve to terrorize entire groups of people. The reporting of hate crimes by local and national media can heighten the perception of threat experienced by certain minority groups who fear that they too could be next (Paterson et al., 2019b). It was also found that group members experience greater levels of empathy, which was linked to their experiences of shared suffering. This gives rise to a constant fear of targeted victimization that is compounded by the frequency with which individuals experience both direct and indirect victimization. Targeted communities must live with the knowledge that they are at risk of hate-based violence at any time, leaving some group members in a state of hypervigilance (Perry and Alvi, 2012; Walters et al., 2020b).
Marginalization
Directly linked to the community impacts of hate crime are the behavioural consequences that restrict group member's capacity to access assets and resources. It is here that we can observe a nexus between social psychological and sociological understandings of hate crime victimization by examining its marginalizing effect. To be marginalized is to face exclusion from resources that enable individuals to self-realize (Young, 2011). Exclusion is therefore a type of social harm that reduces certain individuals’ personal interests in society (Young, 2011). Failure to address processes of marginalization results in entire groups of people being pushed to the periphery of society where they live poorer, less happy lives.
Hate crime contributes to the marginalization of groups of people in several ways. The expression of identity-based hostility, whether through conduct, speech or speech-acts, serves as a violent reminder that individuals with certain characteristics lack the general security that other members of society take for granted. This directly leads to violently oppressed groups taking certain actions to avoid targeted victimization, ultimately reducing group members’ capacity to participate freely and equally in society. Research conducted as part of the SHCP showed how hate crimes directly lead to both avoidant behaviour among targeted groups, including leaving home less often, avoiding certain places and locations, and seeing friends less regularly (Paterson et al., 2019b; see similarly Lantz and Wenger, 2020). These are marginalizing harms that restrict access to social spaces as well as much needed social capital (Benier, 2017). The research also found that community members from targeted groups were less inclined to reveal their identity, such as where LGBTQ+ people hid their sexual orientation or gender identity by changing mannerisms, dressing differently to how they wanted to, or not showing affection to their partner in public (Walters et al., 2020b; see also James and McBride, 2022; Kutateladze, 2022). Such reactions prevented individuals from expressing who they are, denying them an essential part of their humanity (see Figure 1).
These emotional and behavioural impacts are also likely to have economic consequences (James, 2020; Perry, 2002). In fact, both quantitative and qualitative research has also revealed how victims commonly lose employment as their mental health deteriorates and work is missed, especially where this is an ongoing part of their everyday lives (McDevitt et al., 2001; Walters, 2014a).
Powerlessness and institutional prejudice
The process of marginalization outlined above can be compounded where victims feel powerless to overcome the structural barriers that accrue in the aftermath of a hate crime. Young (2011) associated powerlessness mainly with labour division, defining the powerless as those lacking the authority to influence labour policies or outcomes. Consequently, those lacking power find it challenging to attain the status of a professional, which includes expertise, career advancement and a robust self-identity. Although powerlessness is often linked to economic status and labour market disparities, its impact extends far beyond employment status. Sundman (2016: 48), for example, defines powerlessness as lacking ‘the ability to effect things’. Identity can bestow privilege, often without awareness, thereby facilitating access to resources and assets through the decision-making processes found within, and across, public institutions – including education, healthcare and criminal justice services (James and McBride, 2022).
Identities perceived as a threat to dominant social norms may face institutional resistance when accessing these resources, both overt and subtle (Perry, 2002). Institutional biases towards certain identity groups limit the opportunities and capacities for group members to realize their true potential (Hedwig, 2024). Previous research has uncovered multiple failures in how statutory agencies respond to hate crimes, including insensitive responses, disbelief and bias against victims (Alsultany, 2021; Chakraborti et al., 2014; Hardy and Chakraborti, 2020). Empirical research has also highlighted the disproportionate use of criminal justice measures against certain communities, particularly people of colour, leading to high levels of imprisonment, arrests and stop-and-search (Lee, 2024). In a recent review of London's Metropolitan Police Service (Met), Baroness Louise Casey found that the service remained institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic (Baroness Casey Review Final Report, 2023). For example, the report found that one in five Met employees had personally experienced homophobia, while 30% of LGBTQ+ staff reported being bullied. In addition, the review found that there was a ‘major issue’ with over-sexualization and prejudice relating to LGBTQ+ officers and staff, which formed part of the culture of the Met (Baroness Casey Review Final Report, 2023). If individuals become powerless in the face of institutional resistance to their needs, they will face a set of social conditions that affect their sense of place in society. This sense of powerlessness often becomes internalized, shaping group consciousness about life expectations and attainable goals. Consequently, powerlessness becomes a social psychological state, whereby entire groups lack authority and control over the resources necessary for a good life. It is perhaps unsurprising that many respondents from commonly targeted communities do not believe the police or the Crown Prosecution Service are effective in handling such cases (Paterson et al., 2018; Walters et al., 2020a). Distrust of the police within these communities deters individuals from reporting incidents, thereby denying them access to justice. This, in turn, results in these communities withdrawing further into themselves (Perry, 2002). Yet, as Clayton et al. (2022) have found, even ‘safe spaces’ such as the LGBTQ+ scene, mosques (for Muslim communities) and individuals’ homes (in their study, for disabled people) create spaces of hypervisibility that can become the focus of further acts of violent oppression (as illustrated below).
A polity that fails to fully acknowledge institutional biases and the feelings of powerlessness that these give rise to, risks becoming implicated in the distinct and cumulative harms of hate crime. Most criminal justice systems in the Global North construct their laws and attendant justice mechanisms in a manner that responds only to the primary harms of crime (physical or psychological damage caused by an act of violence). Little to no attention is given to addressing acts of hatred as a form of social injustice. This means that law enforcement agencies often lack awareness of broader social structures affecting hate crime victims. Failure to comprehend hate crime's harms as both individual violence and societal marginalization risks perpetuating both issues.
Cultural imperialism
To fully comprehend the physical, emotional, community and institutional harms that hate crimes give rise to, it is important to recognize the cultural and structural factors that sustain the social environments within which hate is permitted to proliferate (Perry, 2001, 2002). Young labels the processes by which this occurs as ‘cultural imperialism’, describing it as ‘the universalization of a dominant group's experience and culture, and the establishment as the norm… [it] involves the paradox of experiencing oneself as invisible at the same time that one is marked out as different’ (2011: 59). Hegemonic cultural identity, seen as a portrayal of the universal human experience, is frequently presented as a singular ‘way of being’. Individuals who do not align with this prevailing cultural narrative can become othered through the process of stereotyping (Perry, 2001). Stereotypes often portray othered groups as unconventional and potentially threatening individuals who are purposefully challenging societal cohesion. Negative stereotypes, coupled with cultural norms that oppose diversity, contribute to the creation of social environments that are hostile to specific out-groups.
The resulting social hierarchies are frequently strengthened by state rhetoric that fosters a social environment within which dominant group members feel empowered to express hate. An important contributor to these unequal structures is the advancement of certain political ideologies by powerful elites. A salient illustration of the cultural effects of political rhetoric can be found during the Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom. A prominent Leave campaigner unveiled a large poster featuring crowds of refugees, accompanied by the slogan ‘Breaking point: the EU has failed us all’ (Looney, 2017). These posters were introduced in conjunction with the false assertion that Turkey's accession to the European Union would lead to the opening of British borders to more than 80 million predominantly Muslim Turks. This type of rhetoric serves to normalize racism and xenophobia through mainstream political discourse and has been shown to be directly correlated with surges in hate crimes (Piatkowska and Stults, 2022). Indeed, during the Brexit referendum campaign, the number of reported hate crimes increased exponentially (Devine, 2021; see also Walters, 2022: 84).
Research has also suggested that the effects of these sudden surges in hate crime are now being sustained as we enter a period of what some commentators have referred to as an ‘era of hate’ (Waltman, 2018). Piatkowska and Stultsis’ research suggests that ‘a continuous debate about the ‘problem’ of newcomers – regardless of the actual size of the out-group population – will embolden some members of the majority group to mobilize efforts to counteract this issue by committing bigoted crime’ (2022: 986). The rise of anti-immigrant hatred is no more clearly illustrated than during the recent race riots across England and Northern Ireland following the fatal stabbing of three young white girls in Southport (BBC, 2024). Following this incident, disinformation was spread by former English Defence League leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon about the perpetrator being a Muslim asylum seeker (BBC, 2024). This, in turn, led to further misinformation being posted online, including by leading Reform politician Nigel Farage (Nicholson, 2024). The next evening, a local mosque was attacked by a large group of far-right individuals, and this was followed by nationwide rioting involving targeted violence against ethnic minority and Muslim communities, emergency service personnel, as well as other random property destruction. Hundreds of arrests were made for racially aggravated offences as well as prosecutions for the offence of stirring up of racial hatred online (Whitehead, 2024).
Central to the framework proffered in this article is that the relationship between political rhetoric, online hate speech, and hate crime is likely to be mutually reinforcing. For instance, Wiedlitzka et al.'s (2023) research on the relationship between offline and online Islamophobia found that physical hate crimes predicted further forms of online hate speech, which was likely compounded by social and mainstream media coverage of high-profile incidents. Put simply, online coverage of extremist activity and incidents of hate crime trigger more online hate speech, which in turn predicts further hate crimes; thereby fuelling an ongoing cycle of public expressions of hatred, or what Wiedlitzka et al. (2023) term ‘compound retaliation’ (see also Beutel and Jupp, 2024; Müller and Schwarz, 2023).
In sum, hate crime ought not be understood simply as the end result of cultural imperialism, but as part of a social process within which acts of hatred play a role in reinforcing prevailing (dominant) norms that are marked by hostility toward entire groups of people (see Figure 2). In this sense, hate crimes become part of a cultural process of dehumanization that marks out dangerous others who must be vanquished (Collard, 2023). Such a process can be conceptualized as a form of ‘cultural harm’ that assists in normalizing group-based animus that in turn serves to promulgate forms of targeted victimization. For too many, this process of victimization becomes a routine and accepted part of everyday life (Iganski, 2008).
The practical implications of the framework
Several international organizations have played pivotal roles in globalizing hate crime's legal prohibition. For instance, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, a component of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, promotes a practical guide for its member nations to legislate against hate crimes (OSCE, 2009), and the European Union has implemented legislation mandating all member states to elevate the punishments for crimes with a ‘racist and xenophobic motivation’ (European Union Framework Decision on Racist and Xenophobic Crime (2008/913/JHA)). These legal and operational definitions of hate crime replicate much of the legal scholarship on hate crime, which has focused predominantly on definitions of hate crime as requiring a ‘base offence’ (e.g. assault) which has a ‘bias’ or ‘hate’ motive (see, e.g. Schweppe, 2021).
My main concern with this widely agreed international definition is that it positions the ‘hate’ of hate crime as a secondary element of an already criminalized act. That is to say, the primary wrong in law remains the base offence, which is made a bit worse where someone acts out of hatred or bias (the aggravation). By defining hate crime in this way, policymakers have inadvertently attenuated what makes hate crime a unique type of offence. It views the harm of such crimes as additive, rather than as a distinct type of wrong worthy of specific legislative proscription. Such an approach also fails to fully acknowledge that there are potentially acts, activities and states of affair that are driven by hate, but which remain either un-criminalized (but that ought to be proscribed based on an assessment of the harms they cause), or which are partially criminalized but in a manner that does not adequately reflect the distinct harms of the hate-based conduct (an issue of fair labelling). Examples may include potential proscription of organizing a group for the purpose of advocating hatred against specified group characteristics, or the burning of progress pride flags (neither of which are specifically criminalized in England and Wales).
How, then, ought legislators to proscribe hate crime in law? First, it is important to acknowledge that the law itself has historically been a source of group-based violence (Meyer, 2014). Critics of criminalizing hate have asserted that hate crime legislation, rather than combating structural inequality, is instead simply another tool of oppression created and administered by social elites to uphold existing power structures (Alsultany, 2021; Gilligan, 2017; James and McBride, 2022; Meyer, 2014). Swiffen (2014) has highlighted a new wave of resistance to such laws, particularly among LGBTQ+ groups, who emphasize that punitive laws may expose minority groups to the institutional biases of the criminal justice system. This critical perspective on hate crime legislation views punishment enhancements as a neoliberal approach to crime that individualizes culpability, thereby obscuring the structural causes and responsibilities behind hate-based criminality (James and McBride, 2022). Essentially, hate crime laws not only fail to protect vulnerable groups, but might also be wielded as instruments to help dominant identity groups maintain their social, political and economic control. This is especially so where hate crime legislation is used to disproportionately criminalize the very communities it is aimed at protecting (see, e.g. Dixon and Gadd, 2006).
This article acknowledges that laws that are framed within neoliberal systems of governance (that is, those which seek to individualize criminal responsibility and which promote punitive sanctions as key to preventing such conduct) may in fact exacerbate the social structures which give rise to hate-based offending. Yet, they can also be implemented within a framework of justice which seeks to genuinely challenge social injustice. What I have previously referred to as ‘law as social justice liberalism’ seeks to develop a system of justice that aims to both unearth and proactively address individual, community, and social harms that are directly linked to group identity (Walters, 2022). Hate crime, if understood as a form of oppression, reveals that criminal acts of prejudice perpetuate and sustain the societal conditions that deny groups of people equal participation in society. Comprehending hate crime in this way offers a new paradigm in which criminal law and its attendant interventions can be framed in a manner that tackles both individual and structural causes of hate-based offending. It is through this expanded lens that I believe we are able to develop public policies, legal frameworks, and criminal justice measures that go beyond conventional notions of criminal wrongdoing.
It is outside the scope of this article to provide a detailed framework of legislation and justice interventions that address hate crime as oppression (for a full analysis, see Walters, 2022). In brief, states interested in addressing the causes and consequences of hate crime should enact policies and laws that directly recognize ‘hate’ as a distinct (as against aggravating) public wrong. This ought to be done firstly by specifying offences in legislation as ‘hate crimes’ (or akin). It is important that the potency of the criminal law reflects the distinct nature of these crimes. This is in contrast to the majority of jurisdictions that have implemented sentencing provisions only; that is, statutory requirements that categorize the hate-element of a base offence as an aggravating feature at sentencing (Walters, 2022). Sentencing provisions do not re-label offences as ‘hate crimes’ and operate only at the final stage of the criminal process. Such laws have the effect of reproducing an understanding of hate crime as base offences that are considered only to be ‘aggravated’ where there is evidence of hate-motivation.
In criminalizing hate-based offences, legislatures must therefore take proactive efforts to identify all forms of conduct that results in group-based oppression. 5 This ought to encompass an assessment of conduct not currently criminalized, but which ought to be based on a renewed understanding of the oppressive harms caused by targeted victimization. I do not intend to examine the merits of worthy candidates here, but examples may include, inter alia, Holocaust denial, burning of symbolic flags (e.g. pride flags), the dissemination of content online, including via social media, video sharing and AI imagery aimed at oppressing specific identities, and the organizing or financing of group activities designed to propagate group-based hatred.
Critics of this expansive approach may express concern about broadening the scope of criminal law to encompass a wider range of social harms than it has previously. This concern is particularly pertinent when punishment is the primary response to criminalization and where criminal justice institutions remain institutionally biased (Baroness Casey Review Final Report, 2023; Dixon and Gadd, 2006; James and McBride, 2022). The utility of the framework proffered here largely depends on the willingness of current systems of justice to reform in more progressive ways. Hate crime laws can only operate to address the pervasiveness of hatred where there is a genuine commitment to repairing individual, community, and structural harms (Walters, 2014a). In this regard, I have proposed a restorative approach to hate crime emphasizing a shift in the delivery of justice that requires the state to facilitate individual responsibility for acts of hatred, while simultaneously committing itself to resolve the harms caused by its own laws and public institutions, including reparations to communities for current and historical institutional prejudices (Walters, 2014a, 2022).
There is some tentative movement towards such an approach in parts of the United States, where restorative solutions to hate crime have been incorporated into hate crime statutes. For example, in Colorado the Criminal Code § 18-9-121 (3.5)(a)(I) states that when sentencing an offender, the court should consider the enhanced element by requiring them to ‘pay for and complete a period of useful community service intended to benefit the public and enhance the offender's understanding of the impact of the offense upon the victim’ or (II) ‘… referring the case to a restorative justice or other suitable alternative dispute resolution program…’. A number of other states have integrated alternative education-based interventions into hate crime statutes as legislators seek to utilize interventions that address underlying causes and consequences of hate-based conduct. 6 Although restoration or community-based programmes such as these are used for the enhanced element of hate crime offences, as against a first stage of intervention, it is nonetheless a welcomed move away from additional punishment as a means of recognizing the elevated harms caused by hate crime.
Conclusion
Hate-based criminal conduct has not yet been widely recognized by policy- or lawmakers as a form of group-based oppression. Instead, it has typically been defined as a pre-existing criminal offence that is aggravated by an offender's biased motivation, thereby pathologizing prejudice and individualizing justice responses. Hate crime framed as a form of group-based oppression becomes much more than this. In its simplest form, it can be defined as hate-based conduct (as distinguished from speech alone), which includes acts, omissions or states of affair, that is considered by lawmakers to be worthy of criminal proscription, based primarily on an assessment of the harms it is likely to cause. At the core of this definition lies the concept of harm. This article has examined the distinct harms of hate crime as forming four faces of oppression: violence; marginalization; powerlessness; and cultural imperialism. Importantly, these multilayered processes of harm are distinct in that they ‘hurt more’ because they are directly related to group identity, which in turn has unique individual, community and social consequences that collectively hinder group members’ capacity to live a ‘good life’ that is free from the constant fear of targeted victimization.
Within social justice liberalism, law enables policy makers to move beyond an understanding of hate crime as individual incidents of violence that hurt victims physically and emotionally, by bringing into its scope the need to address such crimes as a form of social injustice. Laws must specifically identify the moral wrong of hate-based conduct through fair labelling, and be supported by a range of public and justice interventions that seek to genuinely address the micro, meso, and macro levels harms that they cause.
Such a framework is, of course, not without its own limitations. Although evidence of the oppressive impacts that different hate crimes have on certain groups has been outlined in this article, there may be other groups where such evidence is not yet readily available (McDevitt and Iwama, 2016). The framework outlined here does not seek to resolve each and every quandary involved in identifying and addressing hate crime. Rather, it offers a more comprehensive means of understanding why hate crime is unique, and how its distinctiveness is central to addressing its causes and consequences. Given that hate crime laws can now be found on all continents covering over 190 jurisdictions (Walters, 2022), such a framework could help us move away from a globalized neoliberal criminal justice policy domain that has for too long prioritized punitive ideology.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the many colleagues I have worked with over the past ten years on projects that have helped to inform the theoretical framework outlined in this article. I would also like to thank Dr Chara Bakalis, Professor Jennifer Schweppe, Dr Kay Goodall and Professor Zoe James who have provided insightful feedback on earlier versions of this work.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
