Introduction to the Special Issue on Hate, Prejudice and Discrimination

(First paragraph) Welcome to issue 8.4 of the Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research. This issue presents a special initiative addressing hate, prejudice, and discrimination in unique contexts. Articles in this issue reflect a combination of empirical and theoretical work. These articles address a range of timely topics, including, but not limited to, factors influencing perceptions of immigration, demographically based biases in legal decisions, and multi-level framing of aggression and conflict in international settings. Two clear themes emerged to offer new theoretically informed insights into hate, prejudice, and discrimination

Classical Criminological Perspective and Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Rights

This study examined the degree to which perspectives consistent with classical criminological theory among college students and faculty supported public and governmental responses to same-sex rights (e.g., gay marriage). Classical criminology assumes that “crime is the product of a person’s free will” and “the main reason why people break the law is that they figure they can get away with it”. A convenience sample of 1471 undergraduate and graduate students, and college and university professors in the United States, Eastern Europe, Asia, and other unidentified countries completed a survey (via SurveyMonkey) between 2014 and 2015. The data failed to support our hypothesis that people who supported classical criminology were likely to see the issue of same-sex interaction as a non-rule violation and that same-sex rights should be provided. Bivariate analyses instead indicated that classical criminology perspectives did not support attitudes endorsing same-sex rights. One explanation is that people who support classical criminological perspective are more likely to be political conservative and religious, two characteristics that tend to disapprove homosexuality and, thus, less likely to support same-sex rights

On prejudice and punishment: The constitutional and policy dilemmas of hate crime laws

Since the early 1980\u27s, nearly every state has passed a law against crimes motivated by bias. These so-called hate crimes laws have engendered intense debate as to their constitutionality. However, little empirical research has been conducted as to how the laws operate, and what their potential effects may be. This dissertation begins with a legal analysis of the main constitutional issues about hate crimes. It is concluded that these questions are both unanswerable, because their resolutions depends largely on one\u27s individual viewpoint, and answered, because the Supreme Court has already issued a fairly definitive ruling. Instead, it is argued, attention should now focus on other policy issues. The following chapter presents data collected from law enforcement agencies and other sources on the number and character of hate crimes. These data suffer from a number of serious flaws, but a few trends are suggested. Among these are that African Americans are over-represented both as victims and as reported offenders of hate crimes. The remainder of the dissertation discusses the possibility that hate crime laws may actually hurt minorities. The social psychological research suggests that African Americans, in particular, may be more likely than whites to be accused and convicted of hate crimes. This hypothesis was tested via a mock-juror design involving a vignette in which the ethnicity of the victim and offender were varied. Contrary to the original hypothesis, it is concluded that, at least using this vignette, the offender\u27s and victim\u27s ethnicity did not usually affect the juror decisions. Participants also completed the Modern Racism Scale and a new scale, the Postmodern Racism Scale. Scores on these scales were strongly correlated. Overall, participants\u27 level of racism was not related to their decisions in the juror task. The implications of the results are discussed, and suggestions are made for future research in this area