The Criminal Victimization of Immigrants by William F. McDonald

The Criminal Victimization of Immigrants by William F. McDonald

Author:William F. McDonald
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham


23 July 2005: Rev. Barry Rathbone has his car vandalized, a wing mirror broken and the car scratched; the words “Be warned, you’re next Muslim lover” are also painted on the car. The Boscombe vicar had previously given a TV interview where he expressed concerns about making ordinary Muslims scapegoats for the London bombings. (Dorset Echo 26.7.05)

Heterogeneity and the Politics of Hate Crime

By its very nature, hate crime involves heterogeneity, differences between victim and offender regarding some criteria: race, sexual orientation; religion; national origins; and other matters. Thus, Blau’s theory of heterogeneity fits well the circumstances surrounding hate crimes. As a practical matter this means that regions, which are rapidly becoming more ethnically diverse should expect to see an increase in inter-group crime. It can also expected that there will be efforts to define this inter-group crime as “hate crime.”18 But whether it should be classified as such or as just “normal” street crime between individuals from different ethnic groups who happen to have ethnic animosities is problematic and ultimately a political decision.

Advocates of hate crime legislation and its enforcement as a means of protecting ethnic groups from acts motivated by bias and intolerance19 might want to rethink the issue. The race/ethnic composition of the offender-victim duet is changing from majority group member against minority group member to minority group member against other minority group member—the pattern that is become increasingly common in countries with high immigration rates such as the USA—or minority against majority individuals—which is often seen as a form of protest against bias and social injustice.

In the United States, the “ideal offender—victim relationship”20 which the advocates of hate crime laws seem to have had in mind was white against black.21 Crimes involving blacks against whites were not regarded as racist in themselves, but rather are conceptualized as reactions to racism or vendettas for racial or class oppression. Blacks were believed to be seeking out white victims as a kind of revenge against racism. Crimes involving blacks and other minorities were largely ignored.22 It is precisely these latter combinations, however, that are becoming more frequent in communities that are increasingly ethnically diverse. And it is black crime against other minorities (usually white immigrants) that black leaders are now trying to say is not hate crime—even though it is done under circumstances of well-known racial tension.

Such incidents expose the problematic wisdom of the concept of “hate crime.” If a perpetrator utters a racial epithet during the course of a “normal” street mugging, he becomes eligible for a harsher sentence than he would have gotten for just robbing and beating victim without calling him a name. Supporters of the hate crime concept justify it on the grounds that “hate crimes are offenses against society. They target not only a primary victim but everyone in the victim’s group—in fact, everyone perceived as different … [H]ate crime laws say loud and clear that American reject hate mongering in all of its forms and that they will no longer tolerate bigotry.”23

Critics argue that hate crime punishes free speech and is an unnecessary redundancy.



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