A Culture of Hostility and Crime Motivated by Bias: A Cross-National Multilevel Analysis of Structural Influences
This study examines the impact of macrolevel indicators of social environment on officially recorded crime motivated by racial bias and xenophobia across 44 regions in 7 European nations between 2002 and 2011. In doing so, we estimate multilevel Poisson regression growth models where time is nested...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2019
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| In: |
International criminal justice review
Year: 2019, Volume: 29, Issue: 2, Pages: 141-167 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Keywords: |
| Summary: | This study examines the impact of macrolevel indicators of social environment on officially recorded crime motivated by racial bias and xenophobia across 44 regions in 7 European nations between 2002 and 2011. In doing so, we estimate multilevel Poisson regression growth models where time is nested within subnational units, which avoids direct comparison of biased crime across different nations. We test the utility of various theoretical frameworks that have proven to be of relevance in explaining crime motivated by bias. The results reveal that the role of a hostile social climate is of particular interest, as xenophobic and racially motivated crimes are higher in regions with higher levels of anti-immigrant sentiment and higher levels of ethnic discrimination, in line with the “Doing Difference” approach developed by Perry. Consistent with the Power-Differential Hypothesis and Group Contact Theory, xenophobic and racially motivated crime rates are negatively associated with the percentage of the foreign-born population. Finally, the results reveal that xenophobic and racially motivated crime rates are higher in regions with lower levels of social integration, which is congruent with social disorganization theory. We conclude with a discussion of the effects of social climate on crime motivated by bias. |
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| ISSN: | 1556-3855 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/1057567718772332 |