Hate Crime Offenders: An Expanded Typology

TLDR

Little research has examined hate crime offenders’ motivations, and this study extends Levin and McDevitt’s 1993 typology. The study aims to empirically test and expand a typology of hate crime offender motivations by reanalyzing 169 Boston police case files, adding a retaliatory motive, and exploring culpability levels for appropriate sanctions. The authors reanalyzed 169 Boston police case files, assessing the three original motives—thrill, defensive, mission—and the new retaliatory category.

Abstract

Little research has been conducted to determine the motivations of hate crime offenders. This article builds on an earlier work of J. Levin and McDevitt (1993) in which a typology of offender motivations was first articulated. We reanalyze 169 Boston police case files that were originally studied in order to provide empirical grounding for the typology. In this updated study, characteristics of the three original motives—thrill, defensive, and mission—are examined in relation to a new category: retaliatory motivation. In addition, the article addresses the issue of levels of culpability in explaining the most appropriate sanctions for certain kinds of hate offenders.