Chapter 13: Contemporary Issues in Victimology

Victims of Hate Crimes

  • Some victims are targeted due to their perceived qualities based on hate or bias, rather than for services, work, or sex they can provide.
  • These victims are classified as hate crime or bias crime victims.

What Is Hate Crime Victimization?

  • Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990): 28 U.S.C. 534 mandates the Attorney General to collect data on hate crimes based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity
  • The FBI is charged with data collection.

Extent of Hate Crime Victimization

  • FBI statistics (2016): 7,615 people were victims of hate crimes in the United States.
  • Hate crimes accounted for 1% of all violent victimizations recorded in the NCVS.

Who Are Hate Crime Victims?

  • Hispanics experience a higher rate of violent hate crime victimization than White or Black persons.
  • Young people (12-17 years old) have higher victimization rates than those 25-34 and older.

Type of Hate Crime Victimization Experienced

  • The most common motivation was the victim’s race/ethnicity/ancestry.
  • Religion (21%) was the next most common motivation, followed by sexual orientation (17%), and gender-identity bias.

Sexual-Orientation-Bias-Motivated Hate Crime Victimization

  • There were 1,036 victims of anti-LGBTQ hate violence.
  • There were 28 homicides of LGBTQ people in 2017 (NCAVP report), excluding the Pulse Nightclub shooting victims (49 people).

Characteristics of Hate Crime Victimizations

  • 62% were crimes against the person.
    • 45% were intimidations.
    • 36% were simple assaults.
    • 19% were aggravated assaults.
  • Only 9 murders and 24 rape hate crime offenses were reported to the police

Risk Factors for Hate Crime Victimization

  • A person with characteristics an offender “hates” is likely to activate an already motivated offender.
  • Hate crime victimization may be a response to perceived threat:
    • Violations of territory or property.
    • Violations of what is sacred.
    • Violations of status.

Consequences for Individuals

  • In 22% of hate crimes, victims report sustaining an injury
  • Victims commonly experience psychological consequences.
  • Hate crime victimization has been linked to distress symptoms such as depression, stress, and anger

Consequences for the Community

  • When a hate crime occurs, others in the community who share characteristics of the victim may become fearful.

Responses to Hate Crime Victimization

  • The first federal law was the Hate Crime Statistics Act.
  • Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996: prohibits damage to religious property because of the religious, racial, or ethnic characteristics of the property, or obstruction of religious practice.

Criminal Justice System Response

  • Most states have hate crime legislation that designates crimes motivated by hate as a special type of crime requiring a special penalty.
  • Prosecutors decide whether to charge a crime as a hate crime once it is identified as bias-motivated.

Prevention

  • Prevention efforts need to be targeted at offenders using restorative justice principles

Victims of Human Trafficking

  • Trafficking was not a federal crime until 2000.
  • Sex trafficking involves sexual exploitation.
  • Labor trafficking exploits someone for labor.

What Is Human Trafficking?

  • Domestic human trafficking occurs within a country’s borders
  • Transnational human trafficking occurs when persons are transported into another country
  • Bonded labor: a person is enslaved to work off a debt
  • Forced labor: Victims are forced to work under the threat of violence or punishment
  • Involuntary domestic servitude: Victims are forced to work as domestic workers

Extent of Human Trafficking

  • It is difficult to know the true extent of human trafficking.
  • Estimated 12.3 million persons are in forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution worldwide

Who Is Trafficked?

  • Approximately 56% of all victims of human trafficking are females
  • Worldwide, about half of all victims of trafficking are under the age of 18.
  • Germany is the top destination country for sex trafficking of women and girls.

Individual Risk Factors

  • Persons living in extreme poverty and/or those who are oppressed are vulnerable to accepting promises of work in other countries

Country-Level Risk Factors

  • Countries with high levels of civil unrest and violence are more likely to have trafficking networks

Consequences for Victims of Human Trafficking

  • Victims of labor trafficking may be exposed to dangerous working conditions and, as a result, may suffer health problems.
  • Reported psychological effects include shame, anxiety disorders, PTSD, phobias, panic attacks, and depression.

Victim Services

  • Victims of trafficking have fewer resources available to them than do victims of other crimes

Prevention

  • Suggested prevention efforts to prevent domestic servitude center on the arrangements between foreign domestic workers and governments