The Neighborhood Context of Perceived and Reported Anti-White Hate Crimes

• Author: Suzanna Fay-Ramirez,Kathryn Benier,Kevin Drakulich
• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/2153368719832944
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

The Neighborhood

Context of Perceived

and Reported Anti-White

Hate Crimes

Kevin Drakulich

1

, Suzanna Fay-Ramirez

2

,

and Kathryn Benier

3

Abstract

Hatecrimes have received substantialscholarlyattention, largely focusingon victims from

marginalgroups. Large numbersof White Americans alsoreport being the victimof racial

hate crime, thoughvery little research hassought to examine the etiologyor meaning of

anti-White hate crimes. The present work explores the neighborhood context of hate

crimes againstnon-Hispanic Whites in a majority-White city—comparingpolice reports

with self-reported victimizations. Police reports of anti-White hate crimes are most

common in areas that have high rates of nonhate crimes and residential instability.

Perceptionsof bias incidents,by contrast, appear largelydriven by the racialcomposition.

Hate crimes against members of dominant groups appear fundamentally distinct from

hate crimes against members of subordinate groups and require separate theoretical

models of their substantive meaning and etiology. In general, White residents appear to

interpretthe motivations for victimizationsthrough a racial lens—attributing anti-White

motivations most often when they live near larger numbers of Black neighbors—and

reportingthem most frequently in disorganizedand higher crime places. Implicationsfor

theory andresearch on hate crimes, racialthreat, anti-White racism,and the effect of the

racial composition on perceptions of crimeare discussed.

Keywords

hate crimes, anti-White bias, neighborhood context, racial composition, social

disorganization

1

Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

2

University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

3

Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Corresponding Author:

Kevin Drakulich, Northeastern University, 206 Churchill Hall, Boston, MA 02115, USA.

Email: k.drakulich@neu.edu

Race and Justice

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DOI: 10.1177/2153368719832944

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2022, Vol. 12(1) 3–27

Hate crime refers to unlawful, violent, destructive, or threatening behavior in which

the perpetrator is motivated in whole or in part by prejudice toward the victim’s

perceived race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, or

impairment (Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 2013; Green, McFalls, & Smith,

2001; Levin & McDevitt, 2002). Most journalistic accounts of hate crime, hate crime

legislation, and academic research on hate crimes focus on crimes committed against

members of historically oppressed or marginalized groups. For instance, the term

“hate crimes” first came into widespread use among journalists in the 1980s to

describe a series of incidents targeting Black, Jewish, and Asian Americans (e.g.,

Levin & McDevitt, 1993; Shively, 2005). The first official hate crime legislation at the

state and eventually federal level was also passed around this time (Shively, 2005),

though many point to precedents in the anti-KKK Civil Rights Act of 1871 and the

protections from race-based injury or intimidation in the 1968 Civil Rights Act.

Despite this focus on victims from historically oppressed groups, large numbers of

White citizens also report being the victim of racially motivated hate crimes (e.g.,

Gladfelter, Lantz, & Ruback, 2017; Lyons, 2007). In fact, as described below, in the

majority-White city of Seattle, White residents report being the victim of hate crimes

at lower rates but in greater numbers than non-White residents.

Although only a small amount of research has directly considered hate crimes

against members of dominant groups, the results suggest these crimes may be etio-

logically distinct from those perpetrated against members of subordinate groups. Hate

crimes, like nonhate crimes, cluster geographically in spaces with particular kinds of

social and demographic characteristics (e.g., Green, Strolovitch, & Wong, 1998).

However, anti-White and anti-minority crimes appear to cluster in different kinds of

places. Two studies—Lyons’s (2007) study of neighborhoods in Chicago and Glad-

felter, Lantz, and Ruback’s (2017) study of municipalities in Pennsylvania—each

come to a similar but striking conclusion: Unlike anti-minority hate crimes, which

tend to occur in more advantaged and organized places, anti-White hate crimes appear

most likely in classically socially disorganized communities.

This research, however, relies—as does much hate crime research—on public

records of hate crimes: those crimes which were reported to the police (e.g., Lyons,

2007) or to the media or hate crime advocacy groups (e.g., Gladfelter et al., 2017). As

with the counting of other kinds of crimes, these public records are likely to sub-

stantially undercount hate crimes both generally and in systematic ways (Bureau of

Justice Statistics, 2014; Iganski, 2001; Levin, 1999; Perry, 2001). In particular, public

records may best capture those incidents which are both serious in their consequences

and obviously motivated by bias—and especially the “stereotypical” White-on-Black

hate crimes (Lyons, 2008b) which are most likely to be cleared and result in arrests

(Lantz, Gladfelter, & Ruback, 2019; Lyons & Roberts, 2014).

The most basic issue in identifying hate crimes is the difficulty of establishing a

motive with any certainty. This may be a particular problem for anti-White hate

crimes. While anti-minority hate crimes appear to be specialist crimes—occurring in

places where other crimes are less common—anti-White hate crimes occur in the

same places as other types of crimes (e.g., Lyons, 2007). In short, people may perceive

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Race and Justice 12(1)