Theorising Hate Crime

ORCID

Abstract

Hate studies have been commonly aligned with empirical research within the criminological administrative tradition. However, critical theory has played an important part in the development of the area and underpinned some of its more progressive work. This chapter will identify how critical theory has been used within hate studies, how it has been developed, and how contemporary research has increasingly utilised innovative approaches to critical theory as a tool to understanding bias-motivated behaviours and victimisation. To set the critical scene in hate studies it is initially imperative to appreciate the tensions within the area. Firstly, the chapter engages with the problematic notion of hate itself. It then goes on to consider the implications of incorporating motivation in to legal and policy instruments, and subsequently identifies the breadth of behaviours experienced as hate by victims that go beyond such mechanisms’ definitions. The chapter then sets out how various scholars have used critical theory to understand, unpack and, where possible, resolve these matters. In doing so, the chapter engages specifically with Perry’s (2001) theory of ‘doing difference’ that has informed critical thinking in the area and successive ideas. It further engages with theoretical approaches that have challenged Perry’s approach including Walters (2011) who proposed a ‘general theories of hate crime’ followed by his social justice liberalism framework (2022), and Chakraborti and Garland (2012) who used the concept of vulnerability to explain the variable nature of hate victimisation. Finally, the chapter explores Critical Hate Studies (James and McBride, 2021) which argued that hate manifests symbolically, systemically and subjectively in contemporary society and is thus perpetrated and felt in all aspects of the lived experience.

Publication Date

2024-06-21

Publication Title

Handbook of Contemporary Critical and Cultural Criminological Theory

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Acceptance Date

2024-06-21

Deposit Date

2026-02-19

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