Hate Managers and Where They Target: An Analysis of Hate Crime as Hate Group Self-Help

I explore the relationships between hate group activity, community factors, and the likelihood of hate crime occurrence within a county area. I integrate considerations raised by Routine Activity and Social Control theorists as well as current hate crime literature to frame my concept of the hate manager, an agent of social control that utilizes hate crimes as a means of enacting extralegal self-help for hate groups. I explore the relationship between hate managers and hate crime by testing a model relating hate group activity and hate crime occurrences by location. Next, I correlate hate crime occurrences with hate group activity at the county level for the state of Virginia using public data. I find that a hate group's presence holds greater predictive power than nearly any other factor for hate crime likelihood. My findings illustrate the nature of hate crime as a means of social control; whereby hate groups act as a parochial order and maintain hierarchical relations between offenders and victims through means of disciplinary crimes. I conclude by outlining suggestions for future research into the role of the hate manager.