Book Review: Policing hate crime: Understanding communities and prejudice

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734016820918000
• Author: Taylor Hartwell
• Date: 01 December 2023
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

discrimination and systemic oppression that they have no energy left for the political f‌ights. She also

highlights Black people’s lack of “power,”conceptualized as the ability to inf‌luence cultural disorder

by advancing socioeconomic goals and manipulating the political landscape. Boyles recounts the

redemptive stories of three Black men focusing on their ability to reclaim power over their lives

despite overwhelming systemic adversity. She highlights their ability to integrate themselves as pro-

ductive community members and, as Chapter 5 explains, assume roles in the community, whether

formal or informal.

Boyles’account of post-Ferguson provides context with meticulous detail. Interview responses

are presented in an authentic dialect, coupled with esoteric explanations. New terms and recon-

structed def‌initions are introduced (e.g., neighborhood Marshalls, (dis)order, social control, respect-

ability, unhousing), and while they are well explained, they are numerous. Therefore, this book

would be best suited for advanced readers with a knowledge of social science research, looking to

dive deeply into the nuances regarding Black communities and social disorder. Also, due to the rig-

orous research design, this book could serve as supplemental material for a graduate-level research

methods course or graduate seminar courses focused on race and crime.

Mason, G., Maher, J., McCulloch, J., Pickering, S., Wickes, R., & McKay, C. (2019).

Policing hate crime: Understanding communities and prejudice. CRC Press. 204 pp. $49.95, ISBN: 9780367226596.

Reviewed by: Taylor Hartwell ,George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016820918000

In Policing Hate Crime: Understanding Communities and Prejudice, authors Gail Mason,

JaneMaree Maher, Jude McCulloch, Sharon Pickering, Rebecca Wickes, and Carolyn McKay

describe a research collaboration between the authors and the Victoria Police in Australia, as they

implemented a prejudice-motivated crime (PMC) strategy, to better understand and respond to

hate crime.

Despite various terminology and def‌initions, hate crime involves “crime that is motivated or oth-

erwise fueled by bigotry, bias, hostility, prejudice, or hatred toward members of particular groups and

communities”(p. 4), and is targeted at groups such as racial, ethnic and religious minorities, individ-

uals who are disabled, or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning (LGBTQ+)

community members. Similar to hate crime, a PMC involves a crime driven by prejudice or

hatred. An important component of this def‌inition is that in addition to recognizing crimes against

individuals who are disabled, LGBTQ+, or belong to a racial or ethnic minority, this def‌inition

adopts an additional category of “other,”which can include crimes against additional groups, such

as individuals who are homeless. While the original project goal was to develop best practices to

combat hate crime, the project later shifted to focus on the successful implementation of the PMC

strategy. The purpose of the PMC strategy in Victoria Police was to develop an understanding of

PMC among police and community members, while reducing the frequency of PMC, and increasing

community willingness to report this type of crime.

This book is divided into three sections. In the beginning chapters, the authors describe previous

scholarship and legal def‌initions of terms in previous hate crime scholarship, including def‌initions of

“hate crime,”“bias crime,”and “targeted crime”. In addition, the authors provide a discussion of hate

crime internationally and describe the various challenges that exist in translating law and policy into

police practice. This review demonstrates that variations exist in terminology, which present chal-

lenges for developing a clear def‌inition of hate crime, and that various factors, such as def‌initions

538 Criminal Justice Review 48(4)