Individual and community-level predictors of hate-crime victimization among Finnish adolescents

ABSTRACT

Previous studies have explained hate-crime victimization using lifestyle-routine activities theory and social disorganization theory. This approach has yielded mixed findings regarding community characteristics due to the limitations of the measures used. Our study examined the effects of multiple individual-level factors and a neighborhood’s economic status, residential instability, and ethnic heterogeneity on hate-crime victimization. We used survey data on Finnish adolescents aged 15–16 and geographically referenced register data on the neighborhoods. Some public lifestyle factors, such as delinquent behavior, were associated with hate-crime victimization. Community-level characteristics did not predict hate crime directly, but individuals with an immigrant background faced a lower risk of hate-crime victimization in more diverse neighborhoods.

KEYWORDS:

• Hate-crime victimization
• neighborhood economic status
• residential instability
• ethnic heterogeneity
• victim-offender overlap

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 An anonymized version of the data is available from the Finnish Social Science Data Archive at http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3209. However, the anonymized version lacks the school identifiers and neighborhood-level measures used in this study.

2 Cut points were 16.0% and 22.4% in socioeconomic status, 32.3% and 51.0% in residential instability, 2.5% and 6.9% in ethnic heterogeneity.