Does regulating hate promote racial equality? This dissertation proposes a method for beginning an empirical examination into the benefits and burdens of anti-hate laws. Since prohibiting hate speech necessarily invokes the penal system, a promising approach involves measuring the effects of criminalizing similar conduct, i.e., hate crimes. The effects of criminalization are particularly important given the U.S. history of racialized and colorblind justice and some evidence indicating criminalization may harm racial minorities.
Chapter 2 examines whether hate crime laws have the unintended consequence of promoting racial inequality by contributing to racial disparities in arrests. It finds that while police are more likely to recognize assaults as hate crimes when the suspects are white, African Americans are nonetheless significantly overrepresented among hate crime arrestees.
Chapter 3 examines how race affects victim perception of potential hate crimes, and how this, in turn, affects police response. While research suggests people tend to have a preconceived notion of the quintessential hate crime in which African Americans are victims, it also shows a negative racial bias in which people ascribe greater culpability and are more punitive towards African Americans. This study looks at how people act under the real-world stresses of crime. Findings provide clear evidence of a tendency to label African Americans as hate crime offenders and to report them to police at significantly higher rates. Further, while African American suspects experience relatively high arrest rates generally, the magnitude of this effect is significantly greater for hate crimes.
Chapter 4 explores the nefarious uses of hate crime laws, examining how they may be weaponized to inoculate police and undermine movements for racial justice. Specifically, it looks at the case of “Blue Lives Matter” legislation, which extends hate crime protections to police. Findings reject the officer safety rationale: States with BLM proposals do not differ significantly from other states in terms of violence against police. However, African American arrests do predict these bills, indicating they are a continuation of past police repression. Further research is needed to fully understand how officials enforce hate regulations, and the reverberations of this enforcement on society.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uoregon.edu/oai:scholarsbank.uoregon.edu:1794/24193 |
| Date | 11 January 2019 |
| Creators | Marek, Heather |
| Contributors | Norton, Matthew |
| Publisher | University of Oregon |
| Source Sets | University of Oregon |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Rights | All Rights Reserved. |
Page generated in 0.0016 seconds