NCJ Number
227089
Date Published
2008
Length
301 pages
Annotation
This exploratory study relied on openended, in-person interviews in examining adult public opinion on bias crime and bias-crime legislation,
Abstract
Although there was no general consensus on the various aspects of bias crime and bias-crime legislation among the purposive sample of 40 residents of rural, western Pennsylvania, their views had some clear themes. First, they overwhelmingly perceived bias crime as a problem, primarily due to its inherent hateful or biased attacks on victims just because they had some feature or belief different from the attacker. Second, the majority of respondents supported treating bias-crime as more serious than similar non-bias crime, as evidenced by their support for a bias-crime sentence enhancement or in their responses to hypothetical vignettes. Third, on the other hand, most did not advocate the solely punitive approach of current bias-crime legislation. Respondents who viewed similar crimes as on the same level of severity, whether or not they were motivated by a bias against some feature or belief of the victim, generally reasoned that "a crime is a crime," and an attack on a victim is usually motivated by the offender's perception of some aspect or characteristic of the victim. They concluded that it would be difficult to distinguish between various types of hate, and any such distinction would be an inappropriate basis for punishing bias crime differently. Although they viewed bias crime as a serious and offensive problem, they did not believe the appropriate response should be through increased penalties when it is the motivation for a crime. Some felt that bias crime should be addressed in rehabilitation rather than in the severity of punishment. Respondents split fairly evenly on whether bias-crime legislation should emphasize increased punishment or rehabilitation that targets the offender's bias. The interviews were conducted between November 2004 and September 2005. Appended interview protocol, background questionnaire, recruitment card, invitation e-mail, filtering questions, and the consent form; approximately 100 references; and a subject index