ABSTRACT
‘Hate crimes’ hurt more than similar, but otherwise motivated crimes. This has increasingly been acknowledged and understood by criminal justice agencies in a number of countries, by supra-national policy bodies and civil society organisations concerned with fundamental human rights, and by those in the civil and public sectors working to support victims of ‘hate crime’. A substantial body of evidence about the personal injuries of ‘hate crime’ has now accumulated to support the notion that ‘hate crimes hurt more’. Initially, the evidence base developed across a number of studies carried out in the United States was constrained by the use of small samples of victims of ‘hate crimes’ and comparison crimes (cf. Garofalo, 1997) and non-random samples of respondents (cf. Herek et al., 1997; McDevitt et al., 2001). More recently, though, the evidence base has been strengthened by the use of large random samples in the secondary analysis of crime victimisation survey data. In the United Kingdom, research using crime victimisation data from the British Crime Survey (BCS) has considerably extended the depth of understanding and the reliability of the evidence about the personal injuries inflicted by ‘hate crime’ (cf. Botcherby et al., 2011; Coleman et al., 2013; Iganski, 2008; Iganski and Lagou, 2009; Nocon et al., 2011; Smith et al., 2012). This chapter extends the evidence base further by unfolding some new data on the physical, emotional, and behavioural injuries of ‘hate crime’. It also suggests that understanding the particular impacts of ‘hate crime’ can serve to inform appropriate and effective support for victims and inform the training of those working with victims.
