Abstract and Keywords
Hate crimes and their traumatic repercussions are an important area for social worker intervention. This entry will examine how hate crimes are defined and handled, and the difficulties inherent in categorizing and responding to them. Collection of hate crime statistics and hate crime–related legislation are reviewed. The entry will also examine how social workers can help victims and perpetrators and influence how society conceptualizes and prevents hate crimes and their consequences.
Violence motivated by hate has been part of the fabric of human culture since the beginning of time (Jenness & Grattet, 2001). The modern conceptualization of hate crimes is traceable to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and war protest movements of the late 20th century (Jenness & Grattet, 2001). Since 1993, a few overwhelmingly tragic cases of hate-motivated violence have captured the public's attention so much that the 1990s have been referred to as the “decade of hate—or at least of hate crimes” (Rovella, 1994, p. A1). Hate crimes and their traumatic repercussions are an important area for social worker intervention. Work with the individuals, communities, and societies affected by hate crimes is an integral part of the profession's ethical responsibility to work for social justice and to prevent domination of, exploitation of, and discrimination against persons and groups based on “race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, political belief, religion, or mental or physical disability” (NASW, 1999, p. 27).
This entry will first examine how hate crimes are defined and handled, and the difficulties inherent in categorizing and responding to them. It will also examine how social workers can help victims and perpetrators and influence how society conceptualizes and prevents hate crimes and their consequences.
Hate crime effects extend far beyond their direct victims. Through the widespread creation of fear, these crimes make everyone feel vulnerable, particularly those with similar demographic characteristics as the victims. In their most extreme form, hate crimes attempt to exterminate a segment of the population (Powers, 2002). Beyond the devastating psychological impact, hate crimes and crimes committed en masse or in the extreme can lead to mass violence. Most 20th-century genocides or ethnic cleansings against groups such as Armenians, Jews, and Bosnians began with individuals or small groups taking actions against populations that began small and grew exponentially (Powers, 2002). This may lead to retaliation, counter-retaliation, social unrest, and potentially civil war. These dangers to individuals, families, groups, communities, and society led to increased penalties assigned for hate-related crimes in the United States (ADL, 1999).
Under federal law, a crime motivated, in whole or in part, by the victim's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation is a “hate crime” (Krouse & Beaver, 2006). Investigation, prosecution, and adjudication of hate crimes mostly rest at the state level. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have specific hate crime statutes. These statutes generally follow the Anti-Defamation League penalty enhancement strategy, which allows for a more serious sentence to be prescribed to those who chose the victims of their crimes based on the race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender of the victim, or on the offender's perception of such (Wallace, 2006).
All states have legislation that allows some prosecution of hate crimes (Wallace, 2006). The federal government's involvement is limited to jurisdiction over hate crimes affecting federally protected rights such as voting, nationwide hate crime reporting, regulating inter-agency cooperation in hate crime investigations, and funding hate crimes prevention among populations such as juveniles and members of the armed services. Despite efforts in recent years by members such as Senator Edward M. Kennedy