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Abstract
Recent empirical research has identified ambiguity in bias crime reporting as a source of confusion and frustration in law enforcement agencies and as a source of error in the national hate crime statistics. The authors develop a framework for understanding and clarifying these ambiguities based on John Dewey’s conception of intension and extension and their own application of mathematical set theory to the issue. The authors discuss the implications of their model for helping law enforcement officials see bias crimes for varied purposes, including prevention, statistical reporting, and criminal prosecution.
Notes
James J. Nolan III is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University. Jack McDevitt is an associate Dean of Research and Graduate studies at the College of Criminal Justice, Northeastern University. Shea Cronin is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Criminal Justice Policy Research, Northeastern University. Amy Farrell is a principal research scientist and Associate Director of the Institute on Race and Justice at Northeastern University. Correspondence to: James Nolan, Division of Sociology and Anthropology, School of Applied Social Sciences, WestVirginia University, 316 Knapp Hall, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506, USA. Tel: (304)293‐5801 ext. 3210; Email: [email protected].
Throughout this paper the terms bias crime and hate crime are used interchangeably.
In this section we will use the standard symbols for set notation: e.g., {AB} represents the intersection of sets {A} and {B}, {
} is the compliment of set A – i.e., {not A}, and {A U B} is the union of sets {A} and {B}.
We acknowledge that many bias crimes do not even get reported to the police. We are simply limiting our argument to the group of events that get reported to and recorded by the police.
Index crimes include murder and non‐negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. Also included here are other crimes for which reports were taken and/ or arrests were made.
The FBI provides a list of bias indicators in their Training Guide for Hate Crime Data Collection. If any of these indicators exist, the report would be included in {A}.
The federal definition of bias crime includes only 11 crime categories and 5 bias types.
In situations like these, rational choice target selection crimes might have the same effect as a bias crime on victims and communities even though the intention of the offender is not to ‘send a message’ as is often the case in bias crimes.