Dont Talk to Strangers: Dissecting Masons Hate Crime and the Image of a Stranger - Book Report/Review Example

Don't Talk to Strangers: Dissecting Mason's Hate Crime and the Image of a Stranger Hate crimes, or bias motivated crimes, has become a growing issueas society moves to become more diverse and multicultural. This is because hate crimes are not separate and distinct crimes per se but are offences that are motivated by the offender's bias. Thus, concept of hate crime now utilized and embraced, by academics, journalists, politicians, lawyers and a wide cross-section of the public is the one that signifies a crime that is motivated by some form of prejudice. All the prejudice that emanate significantly within the domains of hate crime are those that are associated with the victim's 'minority' status (or perceived status), such as those based on race, ethnicity, sexuality, colour, religion and, to a lesser extent, disability and gender (Mason 2005, p. 837). In the year 2000 alone, the FBI Hate Crime Data Collection Program received reports from 11,690 law enforcement agencies (in 48 states and the District of Columbia), representing nearly 85 percent of the U.S. population. The FBI offered this caution in its annual report: "The reports from these agencies are insufficient to allow a valid national or regional measure of the volume and types of crimes motivated by hate; they offer perspectives on the general nature of hate crime occurrence." A. The Point of the Study As the world witnessed the outpour of studies regarding hate crimes, between 1980s and 1990s, there are still much of the area that remains to be unexplored. These small pieces of empirical research can bring about seemingly large shifts to know the core of how hate crimes are committed. For instance, the popular and early image of hate crime tended to portray it as a form of 'stranger danger', i.e. a random act, involving a perpetrator and victim who are complete strangers to each other. As many empirical studies have shown, this image has been effectively challenged. Thus, the goal of Gail Mason's article entitled "Hate Crime and the Image of a Stranger" (1996) is primarily to contribute in that aspect of research by examining the nature of the relationship between victim and perpetrator in both racist and homophobic harassment through a presentation of the results attained during a study into the complaints of racial and homophobic harassment recorded by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in 2001. With such contribution to this knowledge of hate crime through the profiling of characteristics-both similarities and differences-of the official of complaints, it clearly accounted for racial and homophobic harassment, as recorded by the MPS. Moreover, a scrutiny of relationships have also been formulated in the context of other variables, such as the location of the alleged incidents, a number of complexities emerge regarding the way in which this relationship is understood by victims and, in turn, defined by this research. As Mason (1996) reminded readers that the research in this area needs to be cognisant not only of where the line is drawn, between perpetrators who are strangers to the victim and perpetrators who are known to the victim, but also seeking how this line is drawn. Furthermore, this study seeks to answer questions like: If a perpetrator is recognized by a victim as someone who is familiar or local to his/her area of residence or work, does this necessarily mean that the perpetrator is known to the victim Or, can a perpetrator be both familiar and a stranger at the same time Although this study has admittedly pondered on the ambiguities of the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator of hate crime, with deeper research digging into the heart of the problem, more questions will be unraveled. Or, as knowledge of some aspects of hate crime becomes enriched and more certain, further nuances and ambiguities are inevitably revealed (Mason 2005, p. 837). B. Theoretical Explanations Mason's study drew and designed the aim of gaining pattern understanding of behaviour based on empirical data that prompted people to report a hate crime incident to the police. In particular, Mason's study focused on incidents of harassment that had the potential to be prosecuted under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (recognizing that only a proportion of incidents reported will proceed in this manner). As such, detailed characteristics of incidents, including: location; time of day; relationship between victim and suspect; type of harm involved; and so on were gathered. Through this process, significant information gathered will provide an overview of incidents of racial and homophobic harassment recorded by the MPS. As much as sex offences are officially not as common as many other offences, the Home Office recorded 36,690 for the year ending September 1998, 37,492 for the year ending 1999 (around 10 per cent of violent crime) - but they do seem to be on the increase, they are severely under-reported, and they do provoke a great deal of anxiety and concern (Carrabine et al., 2004, p. 150). Much more, racist and homophobic harassment and violence have emerged as problems of disturbing proportions in England and Wales. According to Mason (1996), in terms of incidents against members and organizations of the Asian and black communities, qualitative research, victimization studies and police statistics collectively paint a picture of verbal abuse, graffiti, property damage, threats and physical violence that is widespread and consistent. Although much of this comprises 'low-level' harassment and abuse, the ongoing and regular nature generates a climate of insecurity within black and Asian communities. There exists a constant reminder of possibility of racism and the associated risk of serious racial violence. Also, as homophobic violence has not attracted the same level of public scrutiny as racist violence. Mason (1996) identified that there is also ample evidence to suggest that the gay and lesbian community is also the recipient of similar kinds (if not similar levels) of 'low level' harassment and abuse, as well as serious attacks on both individuals and organizations. For instance, in the first six months of 2001, 754 homophobic incidents were recorded by the MPS. Furthermore, Mason recognized the lack of available hate-crime literature that directly address the victim-perpetrator relationship. Largely, she conjured that this appears to be a the "image" of the way in which hate crime is usually defined, where the victim is chosen purely on the basis of his or her membership of a particular minority group and, consequently, 'the individual identity of the victim is irrelevant' (Lawrence 1999, p. 9). This, in turn, encourages the assumption that the victims and perpetrators of hate crime tend to be strangers to each other: '[a]s opposed to the perpetrators of other crimes, perpetrators of bias crimes are more likely to be strangers to their victims' (Lawrence 1999, p. 39). Much of the literature embraces this assumption: '[t]hese brutal acts of violence are commonly perpetrated on strangers-people with whom the perpetrator has had little or no personal contact' (Perry 2001, p. 29); 'hate motivated assaults tend to be initiated by individuals who are unknown to their victims' (Medoff 1999, p. 960). According to Wang (1999, p. 802-3), this 'prototypical' image of hate crime is self-reinforcing to the extent that it determines the kinds of incidents that are accepted as hate crime in various contexts: incidents where the victim and the perpetrator do know each other may be excluded. Upon the conceptualization of hate crime as crime committed solely because of the status characteristics of the victim or hatred of a particular group, Mason (1996) suggested that it is most likely to limit the inclusion of crimes where victim and perpetrator are in some kind of pre-existing relationship when a prejudice-related incident erupts between them (e.g. in the context of a pre-existing dispute between neighbours, which may be perceived by police, and victims, as a personal dispute). Ultimately, the findings of research undertaken on official hate-crime data will be shaped by the working definition adopted by the agencies in question. With this, Mason (1996) criticized that some of the literature are inclined to an argument drawn upon the most random and brutal attacks and anonymous hate campaigns, where they build the impression that hate crime overwhelmingly takes place between strangers. Although it is safest to say that hate crimes are always or mostly perpetrated by total strangers, this is not proper. As one characteristic of hate crimes reported to the police, these are often apparently senseless or irrational crimes perpetrated at random on total strangers. As a society, people fear random violence against strangers even more than violence that has a logical basis. For example, if it is reported on the evening news that a drug deal "went bad" and one of the participants killed the other, we react with very little fear or even concern. After all, criminals are killing criminals over territorial disputes. And because we are not criminals, and therefore not competing with them in business, we feel perfectly safe and secure (Levin & McDevitt, 2001, p. 12). However, upon looking at the rate of homophobic violence, Mason observed that research has consistently found that: lesbians are more likely to know the perpetrator than gay men; victims who live in a non-metropolitan area are more likely to know the perpetrator than those who live in the city; younger victims appear more likely to know the perpetrator than older victims; and those who suffer physical injury are more likely to know the perpetrator than those who do not The fact that there is now a small but well established body of research that actively challenges the stranger-danger image of hate crime by arguing that perpetrators may be more likely than not to be known to the victim, recent analysis of hate crime recorded by the MPS, conducted by the Understanding and Responding to Hate Crime Project (URHC), found that in only 10.2 per cent of racist incidents is the perpetrator a stranger to the victim. 'Neighbours' (18.4 per cent), 'locals/local youths' (8.2 per cent), 'school children' (18.4 per cent) and 'colleagues/customers' (14.3 per cent) make up the majority of perpetrators (Stanko et al. 2003: 15). Similarly, only 14.9 per cent of perpetrators in homophobic incidents are classified as strangers, with 'locals/local youths' making up the largest proportion of perpetrators (27.7 per cent), followed by 'neighbours' (20.8 per cent). These findings have led Stanko to argue that the very 'logic of the stranger obscures our ability to understand the ordinariness of hate crime' (Stanko 2001, p. 323). Obviously, Mason (1996) is convinced that there is little consistency in the research in this area. For one, racist and homophobic crimes are not monolithic forms of conduct. Each embodies incidents that vary according to different factors. Mason (1996) deemed that characteristics that make up a 'typical' racist or homophobic incident appear to differ according to these kinds of factors. As a consequence, the victim-perpetrator relationship also varies between different kinds of hate crime and in ways not yet fully understood. C. Methodological Possibilities As the MPS official policy is to record and respond to all hate-crime incidents, irrespective of whether there is sufficient evidence to suggest that a prosecutable crime has taken place, it must be clearly understood that to report or record an incident as racist or homophobic, evidence is not needed. MPS needed to rely on evidence that is not the test and perception on the part of anyone is all that is required. These aspects will then be recorded and investigated in addition to any (other) criminal offences which are being investigated (ACPO 2002: 26). Thus, MPS has sought a single way to confirm its stated commitment to addressing racist and homophobic violence in the London region is through the establishment of a discrete research- and policy-oriented project on hate crime, namely the Understanding and Responding to Hate Crime (URHC) project. The URHC project is responsible for the compilation and analysis of an ongoing database on hate-crime incidents reported to the MPS. In order to do this, the project identifies all crime reports stored in the Crime Report Information System (CRIS) and flagged by the investigating officers as hate-crime incidents. CRIS reports provide a record of information that is routinely collected by police officers following an allegation, as well as any subsequent investigation. The URHC project provided two samples from its existing database: a sample of 20 CRIS records randomly selected from all allegations recorded under the Allegation Description of 'Protection from Harassment Act offences' and flagged as a racial incident (RI) for the month of January 2001; and a sample of 20 CRIS records randomly selected from all allegations recorded under the Allegation Description of 'Protection from Harassment Act offences' and flagged as a homophobic incident (HO) for the period January-June 2001. Data on a series of quantitative and qualitative variables were then examined and will include demographic characteristics of victim; demographic characteristics of the suspect where available; location of the incident; relationship between victim and suspect; details of the incident, including the nature of the conduct and the kind of language used; and a summary of the police investigation. In some instances, such as the sex of the victim, this involved recording quantitative information already specified in the CRIS report. In others, especially where insufficient information was recorded, it involved constructing new categories of analysis based on the qualitative description of the allegation contained in the report (e.g. the relationship between victim and suspect). It is important to note that the data in this study are confined to incidents identified by the MPS as constituting a possible contravention of the PHA. Other categories of Allegation Description could also include reports of conduct that is of a harassing nature. In particular, these include allegations recorded as: harassment, alarm or distress under section 5 of the Public Order Act; threatening or offensive telephone calls; threats to cause criminal damage; and threats to kill. This means that PHA records do not include all allegations involving harassing-type conduct reported to the MPS. The significant feature of the PHA is the requirement for a 'course of conduct', i.e. two or more incidents. Whilst it is not apparent exactly how this might affect MPS categorization of reports into various Allegation Descriptions, it is possible that a report is more likely to be categorized as a PHA allegation if it involves more than one incident or if there is reason to believe that there may be further incidents in the future. E. Effectiveness of Data Analysis The study obtained no significant differences between racial and homophobic incidents in terms of most variables. Some of the variables in the study were relatively broad. The results and similarities could, however, highlight the useful overview of racial and homophobic harassment in collective terms. Hence, Mason assumed that the findings presented are primarily in terms of the total of three group sample of racial and homophobic incidents: (1) victim/s characteristics; (2) suspect/s characteristics; and (3) incident characteristics. Where significant variation exists between RI and HO incidents, these are presented separately. Qualitative case studies, or the summaries of individual allegations are recorded in CRIS reports, which exemplify both the nature of these incidents and the categorizations used in the study. Where appropriate, these findings on racial and homophobic harassment are also compared with URHC findings on police records of racial and homophobic crime as a whole. As what the results explained, the purpose of the study is defeated because the victim-perpetrator relationships were not indicated. The obtained results are also not processed and organized properly. The data should be visually indicated using graphs or pie charts, so that any discrepancies in results will be easily compared. E. Conclusion Although the objectives of the study were quite explicably sound, the gigantic problem with Mason's research/article could be derived mostly on how the results were presented. The author should have effectively presented and organized her data, so that it will easily be comprehensible. For example, she indicated that 75 percent of both racial and homophobic allegations, there was no information formally recorded on the ethnic appearance of suspects. For this, she asserted that no conclusions can be drawn, except to note that a breakdown of the category of White European (a total of 15 per cent, or six incidents) reveals that a higher proportion of racial incidents involve a White European suspect: four out of five suspects in RI cases, compared to two out of five for homophobic incidents. Although the background and the purpose of her study is obtainable and sound, the problem started with her methodology and ended crestfallen as she organized her data haphazardly. For whatever purpose that her results achieved, it would be safe to assume that there is none. But in general, the findings of this study on racial and homophobic harassment are consistent with the reported findings of the URHC project on racial and homophobic hate crime as a whole References Association of Chief Police Officers. (2002). ACPO Guide to Identifying and Combating Hate Crime. Carrabine, E., Iganski, P., Lee, M., Plummer, K., & South, N. (2004). Criminology: A Sociological Introduction. New York: Routledge. Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2000). Hate Crime Statistics, 2000, p. 2 Lawrence, F.M. (1999). Punishing Hate: Bias Crimes under American Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levin, J., & McDevitt, J. (2001). Hate Crimes: The Rising Tide of Bigotry and Bloodshed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Mason, Gail. (2003, November). Hate Crime and the Image of the Stranger. British Journal of Criminology, 45 (6): 837-859 Perry, B. (2001): In the name of hate: Understanding hate crimes. New York Stanko, E. (2001) 'Murder and moral outrage: understanding violence', Criminal Justice Matters 42: Winter 2001/2002. Stanko, E.A., Keilinger, V., Paterson, S., Richards, L., Crisp, D. and Marsland, L.. (2003). Grounded Crime Prevention: Responding to and Understanding Hate Crime. Chapter 11 in H. Kury and J. Obergell (Eds) Crime prevention: new approaches. Weisser Ring: Germany. Wang, L. (1999) The Complexities of 'Hate'. Ohio State Law Journal, 60: 799-900 Read More