HATE CRIME AND EXTREMISM:
Birgitte Schepelern Johansen
PhD, post.doctoral fellow, University of Copenhagen
Paper presented at The RSE & Clark Seminar on Defining Racism in Criminal Law,
Edinburgh, arranged by University of Stirling April 2012.
DRAFT – DO NOT QUOTE OR CIRCULATE WITHOUT PERMISSION
In political rhetoric, both in a European and a US context, hate crimes are frequently connected with
extremism. This is the case when hate crimes are designated extremist violence or expressions of
extreme intolerance. Or when information on hate crimes is presented on official info-sites about
radicalization and terrorism. The connection is also prevalent in a scholarly context: for example the
first part of this seminar, which took place last fall, contained a presentation and a lot of discussion
about political extremism, hate and hate crimes.
But is the connection empirically and conceptually sound? And regardless of its validity: is it desirable
to make for those working on and/or against hate crimes? These are the questions that I would like to
engage with in this paper by presenting some preliminary reflections on the topic. I should perhaps
start by clarifying that when approaching this issue, I take my point of departure in the assertion that
hate crimes are not only a certain species of criminal events that we can discuss in terms of frequency,
impact, punishment and prevention. 'Hate crimes' are also – and maybe before anything else - a
signifier that certain actors have chosen to use and which articulates a range of disparate agendas and
policy areas under one, emotive banner.
Labeling something a 'hate crime' gain its power and meaning from a broad semantic landscape that
also hosts concepts and categories, such as racism, prejudice, bigotry, homophobia, anti-Semitism,
Islamophobia – and not least ‘hate’ and ‘crime’. As two of the leading US scholars on hate crimes have
put it:
"To those who have promoted and embraced it, the concept of hate crime evokes drama,
passion, and righteousness, and it signifies human tendencies toward tribalism and historic challenges
to freedom and equality faced by minority groups…A seemingly simple pairing of the words – ‘hate’
and ‘crime’ – creates a signifier that conveys an enormous sense of threat and an attendant demand for
a response" (Jenness and Grattet 2001: 2)
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Could you say the same thing about the pairing of the two terms or categories ‘hate crime’ and
‘extremism’? What pictures are conveyed through this signification? The gain of the connection seems
to be immediate: like the term ‘hate’, as pointed out in the quote, the term ‘extremism’ invokes a sense
of threat and a demand for action now – exactly what you, from a political or a policy perspective,
would want from a powerful and effective signifier. However, as I will elaborate in the following, I
think that maybe we in an essential way are missing the point if we subscribe to the connection – both
at a descriptive and an invocative level.
Examples of the connection between hate crimes and extremism are many. Sometimes they are rather
explicit, as for example this introductory presentation on the Anti Defamation League’s website on
extremism. Here it is clearly stated that: "At the root of extremism are radical ideologies, radical
religious beliefs and pent up anger and frustration all of which can lead to violent act ranging from hate
crimes to terrorism". A similarly explicit connection is made with the Canadian organization 'The Hate
Crime and Extremism Investigative Team' that collects data and provide officers' training for Canadian
police forces on hate crimes/extremist crimes. On other occasions the connection is made more subtle,
as when you brows the directgov.uk webpage, and under the headline 'counter-terrorism' finds a
definition of hate crimes and a link where you report such crimes. Implicit connections are made when
offenders sentenced under the Danish penalty enhancement for bias motivated crimes are explicitly
mentioned as potential participants in de-radicalization programs. The connection can also be found in
legislation, as would be the case with the German classification system on hate crimes, which has grown
directly out of a recording of criminal offenses mainly targeting right-wing extremism. And the crimes
are labeled ‘politically motivated offenses’.
A concept of extremism
So the connection is made, but mostly it is neither unfolded nor explained. One attempt to unravel the
implications could be to pose the more abstract question: what is actually implied when using to the
term extremism? Firstly, it can be noted that the words extreme and extremism are currently used
almost interchangeably with the words radical and radicalism, even though their etymological roots are
somewhat different. The word radical actually means 'root' or 'at the root of' while the word 'extreme'
marks the farther end of a scale. So here the words actually hold opposite meanings. However, the
radical has subsequent taken on the meaning of the exception or the distinct change of direction - as in:
'he did something under radical circumstances' or 'this is radically different from that' - and now the
words extreme and radical are closing in on each other. Thus, according to the Oxford English
dictionary 'radical' among other things means 'representing or supporting the extreme view of a party'
as opposed to the moderate part. And extreme means 'furthest from the centre', 'the exceptional', or
'persons or their opinion far from moderate' with the following example given: "groups of his more
extreme supporters rioted in front of the parliament". It is in this sense that the word extremism has
entered the vocabulary of politics and political science - as the ones furthest from the center with a
tendency to riot. The word 'radicalization' then denotes the road travelled towards the extreme. Or in
the word of the sociologist Mark Sedgwick: radicalization has become a favorite term to grasp what
goes on before the bomb goes off!
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So - if we buy into this notion of the extreme, denoting something as extreme always imply a
continuum, ranging from, for example the moderate to the extreme. And if we want to be clear about
our topic, we need to define the relevant field in which the continuum from moderate to extreme is
applied, because the terms itself does not logically tell us that. Stating that a hate crime is extreme does
not say anything about in what way it is extreme (is it the hate that is extreme, the violence, is it
extremely good, extremely bad etc.) If we look at some official political definitions of extremism, then
the overall tendency is that the relevant field, in which the continuum is to be found, is ‘political
activism in an open, democratic society’, and the continuum has as the extreme end violent and
undemocratic activities that threaten the public order. Thus we are in the field of security. The
moderate position is never explicated, but logically this would be legal engagement in political activities
like voting, joining parties, engaging in public debates or the like. This continuum of political means
and social stability is definitely at play when hate crimes and extremism is linked. This way of perceiving
extremism intersect with frequently made assertion about hate crimes, namely that hate crimes enforce
insecurity and inter-group hostility that might escalate into something that eventually could be a threat
to the order of society. Actually, here is yet another continuum folded into the first one, namely that a
hate crime as an isolated event is not necessarily at the extreme end. But hate crimes represents a step
in a potential escalation of violence – a process of radicalization – from bullying over violent crimes to
either terror or serious inter-group conflict that might ultimately end in social destabilization. The hate
crime is thus a threat because it precedes the extreme. But as I will return to in a moment, there is at
least one other continuum involved as well, namely a continuum of attitudes towards those who are
different, ranging from tolerant to racist/homophobic/anti-Semitic etc. On this continuum, the
extreme becomes something else, namely a certain species of attitudes or character-traits.
Are hate crimes extreme?
Using this initial clarification of the kind of logics the term extreme evokes, what can we say about the
connection between hate crimes and extremism? Let us first consider the ‘political means’-continuum
where the extreme end would be organized violence and the use of undemocratic means. If we look at
the research that has been done on offender profiles among those who are prosecuted under hate crime
legislations, the immediate – and by now well substantiated – reply would be no. Research suggest that
even though the popular picture of a hate crime offender is a right-wing extremist engaged in some
kind of hate group, and even though hate crimes in many countries are considered a matter not only for
the police but also for the intelligence bureaus, only a small proportion of hate crime offenders are
associated with organized extremist milieus. As several scholars have argued (Paul Igansky, Barbara
Perry, Jon Garland, McDevitt), hate crime offenders are not mainly hate-driven bigots, or politically
motivated extremists, but mostly young people who offend in the context of their everyday life. And
actually, the one main thing that seems to hold true for hate crime offenders is that they not have very
much in common besides this characteristic. Thus, hate crimes does not primarily seem to be part of
any political project to alter society by un-democratic, violent means. They might in some cases be
expressions of discontent with the ways social goods are distributed. In others, they seem to be random
escalation of everyday conflicts, as a means of pulling of steam, seeking thrill or reaffirming existing
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structures of difference. Hate crimes may be a serious problem, but they are not primarily extremists
according to this continuum.
But as mentioned there seem to be at least one other continuum at stake than the one on political
means, when we are talking about hate crimes. There also seem to lurk an attitudinal continuum in the
background, where values such as tolerance and equality are positioned at the moderate center, while
various - or one might add: any - expressions of group based prejudice or animosity is considered
extreme. If we for example look at the official Danish definition of radicalism then it states that
radicalism implies any "opposition to an open, democratic and pluralistic society" including the
acceptance that "social groups be threatened, insulted or denigrated on account of their color, national
or ethnic origin, faith or sexual orientation". Here the extreme is opposition to the open, democratic,
tolerant society, and this implies for example insult on or denigration of the standard protected
categories in anti-discrimination clauses as well as hate crime legislations. So now being radical or
extreme is not so much a matter of using violent or anti-democratic political means by which one seeks
to alter society, it is rather the content and attitude of the alteration. Being intolerant is the threat to
society. The same tendency can be seen at the official website of the Danish Police Intelligence, where
extremist violence is not defined by the severity of the offence but by the motivation, that is: hostility
against the victim based on the same protected identity categories as the ones mentioned in the hate
crime legislation. Thus, it is not the violence that elicits the label ‘extreme’ but the group based hostility,
and thereby the formulation of extremist violence comes awfully close to the definition of hate crimes.
If we use such an attitudinal continuum any hate crime, regardless of it being premeditated, regardless
of the profile of the offender, regardless of the seriousness of the assault, to the extent that it genuinely
express such group based hostility is by nature extreme, because they represent the opposite of the
core/moderate value of the ideal, democratic society.
So having clarified these two different continua that seem to be in play when hate crimes are associated
with extremism, what can we say about the validity of making such a connection? As this brief attempt
to unravel some of the intertwinements hopefully has shown, it depends on what continuum we use.
According to a ‘political means’ continuum, then empirically the answer is mainly no: hate crimes are
not primarily something associated with violent political extremism. According to an ‘attitudinal’
continuum, then we might argue for a yes, if we accept that tolerance is moderate and bigotry is
extreme.
What is gained – and what is lost
Independently of this attempt to clarify the validity of connecting hate crimes and extremism, we can
still ask: what is gained and what is lost by making the connection? As mentioned initially, reference to
extremism obviously serves the purpose of communicating the seriousness of the crimes: it is an
immediate threat that goes to the “core of our democratic values”, to use a quote from the OSCE
report on Hate crimes in Europe. However, I would suggest that the persistent articulation of hate
crimes as extremist could also be captured in the sentence: Too high - too low…but mainly beside the
point! If we consider the political continuum, using pictures of right wing extremists marching with
banners, or invoking notions of social destabilization and terrorism to capture a category that also - if
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not mainly - implies bullying with racial epithets or a disabled person getting his or her walking aid
kicked away, that is perhaps too strong a depiction not of the seriousness of the crime but of the kind
of social and political implications of the crimes.
Simultaneously, the connection between hate crimes and extremism potentially also underestimate the
seriousness of the crimes. Invoking the notion of the extreme to grasp the actions as well as the
attitudes involved in hate crimes may be an attempt to really underline the threat, but implicitly it also
serves the purpose of removing the offenses from the center of society. However, if we agree that hate
crime offenders are mainly ordinary people that offend in the context of their everyday life, and if we
consent that the views they hold in terms of prejudice and group based intolerance are not that
uncommon, then we either need to let go of the idea of extremism, or we have to accept the somewhat
paradoxical assertion that the extreme is in no way marginal but right at the center. Paul Igansky has
tried to grasp this rather nicely: "For those who belong to communities victimized by hate crime there
might be a sad and paradoxical comfort in the thought that offenders might be an aberration, confined
to the margin of society in terms of the sentiments they express. It is somewhat more disturbing,
however, to think that rather than being on the margins, they are among 'us', and many in the
communities to which they belong, share their sentiments" (2008:39). In this case, what begs the urgent
attention is not an extremity but processes of normalization, and using the term extremism simply fails
to adequately grasp the day to day expressions of for example racism and xenophobia.
Obviously, one should remember, that while conceptual clarity might be desirable in an academic
context, it might not necessarily be in a political or policy context. Keeping the semantic field open
makes it possible to draw on measures from various political tool kits, and by keeping these different
continua in play, one can shift between for example security agendas and anti-discrimination agendas.
Still, even political rhetoric cannot afford to be completely disregarding of facts, and thus the question
of what hate crimes at all have to do with extremism seems relevant to pose – and answer. Even
though I am not the first to raise these questions, they continue to be pertinent, among other things
because the connection places hate crimes and not least the hate crime offender in a currently very
strong ‘high risk’-discourse with links to security, radicalization and terror. So the soundness of the
connection still begs some considerations. And here I tend to think there is a rather strong case for
dismissing the connection, because it obscures more than it clarifies. If one of the central challenges in
working with hate crimes remains to adequately grasp and address the connections between crime and
context, individual acts and structural background, the extremism road might prove to be a dead end.
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