Measuring Attitudes About Hate: Development of the Hate Crime Beliefs Scale

Abstract

Employing the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) of 2009 and other such legislation as a backdrop, the present study evaluated the nature of beliefs about hate-crime legislation, offenders, and victims. In addition, it investigated construct validity (i.e., political beliefs and prejudice) and predictive validity (i.e., blame attribution and sentencing recommendations). A total of 403 U.S. adults completed measures of prejudice and an initial pool of 50 items forming the proposed Hate Crime Beliefs Scale (HCBS). Participants were randomly assigned to read one of four hate-crime vignettes, which varied in regard to type of prejudice (racial-, sexual orientation-, transgender-, and religion-based prejudices) and then responded to blame and sentencing questions. Factor analyses of the HCBS resulted in four sub-scales: Negative Views (i.e., higher scores reflect negative views of legislation and minority group protection), Offender Punishment (i.e., higher scores suggest endorsement of greater punishment), Deterrence (i.e., greater scores denote support for hate-crime legislation as a deterrent of more violence), and Victim Harm (i.e., higher scores reflect pro-victim attitudes). Greater pro-legislation and pro-victim beliefs were related to liberal political beliefs and less prejudicial attitudes, with some exceptions. Controlling for a number of demographic, situational, and attitudinal covariates, the Negative Views sub-scale displayed predictive utility, such that more negative views of legislation/minority group protection were associated with elevated victim blame, as well as lower perpetrator blame and sentencing recommendations. Results are discussed in the context of hate-crime research and policy, with additional implications considered for trial strategy, modern prejudice, and blame attribution theory.

Keywords

hate crimes scale development prejudice blame attribution

Hate crimes are defined as crimes of violence either to a person or their property that display evidence of prejudice based on race, gender/gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity (Hate Crimes Prevention Act [HCPA] of 2009, P. L. No. 111-84; Jacobs & Potter, 1998). In addition to actual membership, hate crimes can extend to perceived membership within a group (Sullaway, 2004). According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data, 6,718 hate-crime offenses occurred in 2012 (FBI, 2012). These crimes varied in terms of their motivation. Just over 48% represented crimes that were racially motivated, while nearly 20% were motivated by sexual orientation, 19% by religious preference, and 11.5% by ethnicity or national origin. Furthermore, 38% were property crimes, whereas an overwhelming 59% were interpersonal crimes, including simple assault, aggravated assault, and intimidation, demonstrating that hate crimes most often involve harm to an individual. Due to occurrence and deleterious impact on victims, research on legal issues involving hate crimes has grown considerably (e.g., Cramer, Chandler, & Wakeman, 2010; Mallett, Huntsinger, & Swim, 2011; Plumm & Terrance, 2013). One domain showing promise in understanding perceiver judgments of hate-crime victims and offenders is a growing body of work addressing attitudes or beliefs concerning hate crimes and associated legislation (e.g., Cramer, Kehn, et al., 2013; Johnson & Byers, 2003; Mallett et al., 2011; Spoor, 2004).

Despite existing research on attitudes toward hate crimes, there is no validated measure to assess these beliefs.¹ Authors are reliant on creating their own crude metrics to acquire information on hate-crime-related attitudes, which can lead to inconsistent and imprecise findings across studies. The instance of asking about legislation-related beliefs provides a good example; Johnson and Byers (2003) asked participants, “To what extent would you support such a hate crime law in the state of Indiana?” Furthermore, Cramer, Kehn, et al. (2013) evaluated participant agreement with the sentencing enhancement portion of federal hate-crime legislation by having participants read a vignette and then asking, “Do you think the fact that this was a hate crime should result in increased punishment for the perpetrator?” The simplistic and varied phrasing of questions makes it difficult to generalize data from one study to another. Furthermore, narrow, single-item measures are unable to capture the full complexity that a multifactorial scale would allow for. Such single-item measures generally focus on one dimension of hate-crime-related beliefs. For example, in both of the scenarios stated above, participants are asked about their beliefs regarding penalty enhancement for hate-crime perpetrators (Cramer, Kehn, et al., 2013; Johnson & Byers, 2003). Understanding beliefs about enhancing punishment for offenders only provides information specific to one area within hate-crime beliefs. Having a longer list of items, and resulting sub-scales, may allow researchers to more fully capture attitudes, as well as to develop a better understanding of how such attitudes relate to prejudice and legal decisions. The current study seeks to assess the utility of a scale that will measure a comprehensive set of hate-crime-related beliefs to facilitate research consistency and understand the full nature of public attitudes.

Development of a Hate Crime Beliefs Scale (HCBS), inclusive of views concerning victims, offenders, minority groups, and legislation, is an important topic for several reasons. First, empirical data reviewed below indicate that beliefs about victims and offenders may drive legal decision-making by trial fact-finders. However, the majority of the literature articulating arguments about these issues is in the form of philosophical or legal argument (as opposed to quantifiable metrics). The present study seeks to fill the need for a comprehensive measure of hate-crime-related beliefs to better inform the legal decision-making hate-crime literature. Second, given that beliefs concerning public policy issues such as hate crimes may be manifestations of social and criminological theory (Gerstenfeld, 2011; Nelson, 2006), we seek to test aspects of two theoretical perspectives as they may inform the nature of hate-crime-related attitudes. These perspectives are modern prejudice and blame attribution theories. In the following sections, we first review existing hate-crime legislation to provide the policy backdrop for legal/social arguments for and against hate-crime laws (a pivotal component of hate-crime-related beliefs). Second, we review blame attribution theory and associated jury-decision-making literature to highlight how perceptions of hate-crime victims and offenders are crucial components in the assessment of hate-crime-related beliefs. Finally, we summarize modern prejudice as a conceptual framework for construct validity and the manifestation of prejudice in the form of beliefs about legal issues.

Hate-Crime Legislation

Forming the legal backdrop for the present scale development, the first federal legislative action in the last 25 years was the Hate Crime Statistics Act in 1990 (28 U.S.C. 534), which requires the U.S. Department of Justice to collect and publish data about crimes against victims of prejudice by race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability. In 1994, the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act (28 U.S.C. § 994) was passed, increasing penalties for hate-crime perpetrators. Most recently in 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. HCPA (P. L. No. 111-84) was enacted to include minorities of sexual orientation, gender, and disability with other federally protected groups. Importantly, because the HCPA only allows the Department of Justice to assist in the prosecution of violent crimes, many states have passed their own hate-crime laws. For example, in Texas, punishment for a hate crime is increased to the punishment in the next highest category. If an individual were to be convicted of a second-degree felony, evidence of a bias-motivated crime would increase the punishment to a first-degree felony (Tex. Crim. Pro. Art. 42.014; Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 12.47). All but five states have a penalty-enhancing hate-crime law, although the types of minority groups they protect vary (Anti-Defamation League, 2013; Gerstenfeld, 2011). Concerning format of the laws, some states have enacted laws that act as penalty enhancers, increasing sentence length potentially up to three times, depending on which state is prosecuting. In other states, bias-motivated misdemeanors can be reclassified as felonies. Hate crimes can also be considered separate offenses (Gerstenfeld, 2011). Indeed, an argument could be made that hate crimes would not occur at all without the underlying presence of bias driving the act.

Support and Opposition of Hate-Crime Laws

The vast literature on arguments for and against hate-crime laws provides a groundwork for development of the present scale, as many of these arguments pertain to perceptions of offenders, victims, legality/morality, or equity in application of the law. Such topics may manifest as joint or separate sub-scales in a unified HCBS. Advocates of hate-crime legislation are supportive for a number of reasons, some of which are offense or offender specific. A major argument in the support of hate-crime legislation is that crimes of this nature are morally offensive deserving harsher punishment (Adams, 2005). Several studies have found that jurors assign more punishment, as well as higher assessments of blame, to offenders who commit bias-motivated crimes (e.g., Cramer, Wakeman, Chandler, Mohr, & Griffin, 2013; Plumm, Terrance, Henderson, & Ellingson, 2010). Research of this kind establishes that society is less tolerant of offenders who target minority status victims (Gerstenfeld, 2011). In addition, advocates of hate-crime legislation are supportive of its role in deterrence (Gerstenfeld, 2011; Sullaway, 2004). It has been argued that this communicates a powerful message about the values of society (Sullaway, 2004); however, no data exist to date establishing the effectiveness of such deterrence. Strong support for hate-crime legislation also exists due to the psychological trauma that victims suffer, which suggests offenders deserve more punishment for inflicting this type of harm (Gerstenfeld, 2011). Research suggests that victims of hate crimes suffer from higher levels of depression, anxiety, fear and anger than victims of non-bias-motivated crimes (e.g., Herek, Gillis, & Cogan, 1999; McDevitt, Balboni, Garcia, & Gu, 2001; Sullaway, 2004). Furthermore, Noelle (2002) investigated the impact of Matthew Shepard’s murder (a victim of a sexual orientation bias-motivated crime) on other gays, lesbians, and bisexuals and found a significant amount of the individuals interviewed were negatively affected by a murder of someone they did not personally know, but identified with due to shared minority status.

Opponents of hate-crime legislation argue that the prosecution of hate crimes overtaxes the legal system (Glaser, 2005). For instance, these crimes consume a considerable amount of time in court when they usually represent lesser offenses and may obscure the reality of actual violence that takes place (Dunbar & Molina, 2004). Opponents also argue that there are several aspects of hate crimes that make them unconstitutional. For example, there is no universal definition on protected minority groups, which increases the likelihood of violating the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Gerstenfeld, 2011). Critics of hate-crime legislation also propose that an inequity exists between hate crimes and other types of crimes making them unconstitutional and unfair (Sullaway, 2004). Opponents suggest that hate-crime laws create special treatment for victims simply due to their minority status. In defending this argument, Sullaway (2004) stated, “Why should penalties be added to hate crimes when a person killed in a hate crime is just as dead as a person killed for reasons of greed?” (p. 261). Additional opponents have even gone as far to suggest that hate-crime penalty enhancement violates the double jeopardy clause because offenders are first sentenced for the original crime and then receive additional time for the bias-motivated aspect of the crime (Nearpass, 2003). In terms of unconstitutionality, critics feel that punishing an offender based on their beliefs violates the First Amendment (Bessel, 2010; Gerstenfeld, 2011). While social and legal arguments abound, there is a small but growing empirical literature grounded in blame attribution theory concerning legal decision-making in hate-crime cases that may inform item development and likely factor structure for the present study.

Blame Attribution Theory and Application to Perceptions of Hate Crimes

Blame attribution theory holds that an actor or actors in an event are viewed as responsible or blameworthy to the extent they cause an event (Shaver & Drown, 1986). The process of attributing blame is not this simple, however. Theoretical literature on blame (e.g., Chockler & Halpern, 2004; Mikula, 2003; Nadelhoffer, 2006) suggests a multitude of factors inform assignment of blame to an actor, including perceived intent (e.g., to harm), degree of causal responsibility (i.e., as opposed to accidental), observable responsibility (i.e., behavioral contribution to an event), and moral reprehensibility of an act. Importantly, assignment of blame appears to serve functions such as providing an understanding of misfortunes, repairing harm done to a victim, or exhibiting a sense of personal control over an event (e.g., Capezza & Arriaga, 2008; Shaver & Drown, 1986). Applied to hate-crime-related beliefs, blame attribution informs potential item content and likely sub-scales. For instance, the role of intent to harm a victim, beliefs about the offender’s morality or character, and correction of injurious conduct appear to be themes derived from blame attribution theory.

Recent research has examined blame attribution as a predictor and an outcome in hate-crime jury and public perceptions research (e.g., Johnson & Byers, 2003; Lyons, 2006; Plumm & Terrance, 2013; Plumm et al., 2010). Concerning public perceptions, Johnson and Byers (2003) investigated possible causes of attitudes toward hate crimes, finding that a robust factor was minority groups protected by the laws. Specifically, liberal individuals, who believed that hate crimes create widespread fear within minority groups, as well as those who supported the penalty enhancement law believed that sexual orientation minorities should be included as a protected group. Individuals who opposed the law felt that sexual orientation minorities should be excluded. Steen and Cohen (2004) found that participants who believed minorities have too few rights recommended more punishment for hate-crime offenders and less punishment for non-hate-crime offenders. Participants who were pro-punishment (vs. pro-treatment) recommended more punishment to the non-hate-crime offenders and less punishment to hate-crime offenders as well. Plumm et al. (2010) reported a similar influence of sexual orientation-related views; although participants may agree that the defendant was guilty of a hate crime, those who were less likely to support gay community members blamed the victim more.

A series of studies by Cramer and colleagues (Cramer et al., 2010; Cramer, Clark, Kehn, Burks, & Wechsler, 2014; Cramer, Gorter, et al., 2013; Cramer, Kehn, et al., 2013; Cramer, Nobles, Amacker, & Dovoedo, 2013) investigates two questions: (a) the role of blame attribution in punishment of offenders and (b) the nature or structure of blame in hate-crime trials. With regard to the punishment of offenders, perceptions of victim blame are generally (but not always) negatively, and perceptions of offender blame positively, linked with enhanced punishment (Cramer et al., 2010; Cramer et al., 2014). These effects tend to be exacerbated by disagreement with hate-crime legislation and, in the case of offender blame, when the victim is gay (Cramer et al., 2014). The nature of blame attribution in antigay hate crimes tends to be unidimensional for perceptions of offenders (Cramer, Gorter, et al., 2013), but multi-dimensional in the perceptions of victims (Cramer, Nobles, et al., 2013). In sum, how perceivers blame actors in a hate crime may be key to understanding the structure of hate-crime-related beliefs, as well as associated decisions informed by these beliefs. Given that hate-crime research involves the balance of perpetrator and victim blame, blame attribution overtly informs the present scale development in that it provides specific content of blame/beliefs about victims and offenders. Moreover, to the extent blame attribution manifests in public perceptions concerning hate crimes, entire sub-scales about victims and/or perpetrators may emerge. The same may also be true for modern prejudice theory, as we turn to this for further grounding of scale development and construct validity.

Modern Prejudice as Grounding for Expression of Hate-Crime-Related Beliefs

Hate crimes can be thought of as an extreme demonstration of societal prejudice (Cramer, Wakeman, et al., 2013). Two versions of prejudice exist. Old-fashioned prejudice is blatant, obvious acts of discrimination, much of what characterized the 1960s and 1970s, including obvious acts such as interpersonal violence (e.g., lynching), and societal-level policies (e.g., segregation; Duckitt, 1992; Nelson, 2006). While this type of prejudice is still prevalent, expressions of prejudice have shifted to a subtler, implicit form, termed modern prejudice (Nelson, 2006). Often serving symbolic purposes, modern prejudice may manifest in a number of ways, including sociopolitical beliefs (Nelson, 2006), and be expressed under conditions such as the presence of certain group ideologies or individual attributions of responsibility (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003). Modern prejudice is often comprised of characteristics such as knowing discrimination is wrong, but holding beliefs and acting in such ways as to reinforce structural inequality between groups (Nelson, 2006). Policy or legal decision-making might be a context where people express modern prejudice (Gerstenfeld, 2011). Such expression may be captured in scale development by item content about perceptions of different minority groups or anti-hate-crime law beliefs more generally. That is, greater levels of modern prejudice may be reflected by endorsement of scale items concerning lack of protection of minority groups and opposing the laws in general. Likewise, sub-scales emerging concerning these topics may reflect modern prejudice in legal perception form.

Research has begun to examine the way in which certain types of contemporary or modern prejudice, based on minority group status, affect attitudes toward hate crimes (Dunbar & Molina, 2004; Spoor, 2004). Perceptions of hate-crime victims and laws, for instance, may provide an outlet for the expression of such negative views of minority group members, social protections, or leveling the political and legal landscape. As such, we draw on these issues in theme and item development. Modern prejudice also serves as the foundation for selection of construct validity in the present study. As such, we specifically address prejudice based on race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and religion, from a modern prejudice framework. We specifically chose a measure of symbolic racism (reflecting modern racial beliefs) as well as a scale measuring modern homonegativity. In addition, we chose a measure of transphobia to reflect a relatively new concept of prejudice toward transgender individuals. The measure we chose to address religious bias is a recent measure that instead of concentrating on religious bias toward one particular group investigates prejudice against a group different from the respondent. We chose these types of prejudice as starting points for potential construct validation in the development of a HCBS.

Concerning race, Dunbar and Molina (2004) found that while students generally felt as if hate-crime laws were necessary, higher racial prejudice was related to opposition to hate-crime laws. Furthermore, Rayburn, Mendoza, and Davison (2003) found that more racially prejudiced individuals were more likely to find hate-crime victims more blameworthy and hate-crime perpetrators less blameworthy. Regarding sexual orientation, homonegativity, or sexual prejudice, describes negative attitudes and behaviors based on hatred toward sexual orientation, specifically to those who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (Herek, 2000). Cramer, Wakeman, et al. (2013) found that individuals low in homonegativity were more likely to assign the death penalty to perpetrators of hate crimes suggesting that low prejudice is associated with more favorable outcomes for minority victims. Transphobia is a type of prejudice toward individuals living in a gender different from what is heteronormative. Transgender persons are thought by some to violate traditional gender roles and gender identity (Bornstein, 1994; Nagoshi et al., 2008). Nagoshi and associates (2008) found that transphobia was positively associated with homophobia, as well as socially conservative attitudes and hostile sexism, indicating that transphobia may demonstrate similar associations with perceptions of hate crimes as other forms of prejudice. Finally, concerning faith, research by D’Alessio and Stolzenberg (1991) investigated variables associated with Anti-Semitic beliefs and found that individuals with more education are less likely to hold Anti-Semitic beliefs while less educated and younger Americans are more likely to hold Anti-Semitic beliefs. One promising area with religious bias research is that of interfaith intolerance. Interfaith intolerance is prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination toward another faith or religion (Crosby & Varela, 2014).

The Present Study

As there is growing research on attitudes toward hate-crime victims, offenders, and legislation, the current study seeks to develop a measure to assess a uni- or multi-dimensional conceptualization of such attitudes. Moreover, development of a HCBS may assist in understanding how nuanced beliefs concerning hate crimes may vary by prejudiced attitudes and political orientation. The following hypotheses are proposed.

Hypothesis 1: The proposed HCBS will result in a multifactorial structure.

Hypothesis 2: There will be a positive relationship between liberal political beliefs and pro-victim/legislation hate-crime attitudes.

Hypothesis 3: There will be negative relationships between prejudice (i.e., racial-, sexual orientation-, transgender-, and religion-based prejudices) and pro-victim/legislation beliefs.

Hypothesis 4: The HCBS will display predictive ability in legal decisions (i.e., sentencing recommendations and attributions of blame toward a hate-crime victim and offender).

Method

Participants

Participants were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). MTurk is available to over 100,000 users who are able to choose available surveys for monetary payment. Data obtained through MTurk are more diverse than college samples, but still as reliable as data obtained through traditional methods (Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011). Casler, Bickel, and Hackett (2013) found that in a study comparing participants recruited by a number of different methods, MTurk participants were significantly more socioeconomically and ethnically diverse than participants recruited through other methods.

A total of 403 U.S. adults were recruited for participation in the current study. The mean age of participants was 35.6 years (SD = 12.9). Of these participants, 167 (41.4%) were male, 233 (57.8%) were female, 2 (0.5%) were male to female transgender, and 1 (0.2%) was female to male transgender. In terms of race, 276 (68.5%) were Caucasian, 50 (12.4%) were African American, 30 (7.4%) were Asian American, 18 (4.5%) were Latin American, 6 (1.5%) were Native American, 21 (5.2%) were Biracial, and 2 (0.5%) reported “human” as their race. Regarding ethnicity, 366 (90.8%) were not of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin; 15 (3.7%) were of Mexican, Mexican American, or Chicano origin; 8 (2%) were of Puerto Rican origin; 3 (0.7%) were of Cuban origin; 1 (0.2%) was of Spanish origin; and 10 (2.5%) were of Central or South American origin. Sexual orientation was reported as follows: 349 (86.6%) were straight, 14 (3.5%) were Lesbian/Gay, 21 (5.2%) were Bisexual, 11 (2.7%) preferred not to use a label, 3 (0.7%) were Asexual, 1 (0.2%) was Questioning, 3 (0.7%) Pansexual, and 1 (0.2%) was Queer. Of the participants, 202 (50.1%) reported a Christian-affiliated religion (e.g., Mormon, Catholic, Baptist), and 170 (42.2%) reported no religion. The remaining sample (7.7%) was comprised of various religious affiliations, including Quaker, Wicca, Agnostic, and Jewish. In terms of political orientation, 167 (41.4%) individuals were Democrat, 76 (18.9%) were Republican, 144 (35.7%) were Independent, 2 (0.5%) were Anarchist, 4 (1.0%) were Libertarian, 5 (1.2%) were Green, 1 (0.2%) was Socialist/Communist, and 4 (1.0%) reported none as their political party. Eighty-seven (21.6%) participants reported jury service experience, while 316 (78.4%) did not have jury service experience. Using U.S. Census geographic categories, the sample was diverse. Seventy-nine (19.6%) participants lived in the West, 159 (39.5%) lived in the South, 90 (22.3%) lived in the Midwest, 71 (17.6%) lived in the Northeast, and 4 (1%) participants declined to provide their state and answered “USA.”

Materials

Demographics

Participants completed a demographics questionnaire (see “Participants” section for details). Political orientation was measured by a 10-point Likert-type scale that ranged from 1 (conservative) to 10 (liberal).

Racism

Racial prejudice was measured using The Symbolic Racism 2000 Scale (SR; Henry & Sears, 2002). This scale was created to measure modern racial attitudes and is made up of eight items, each with their own set of responses. After reverse scoring, higher scores indicate increased racial prejudice. For the present study, Item 3 was removed from the scale due to only having a 3-point response scale in contrast to other items having a 4-point response scale. Cronbach’s alpha in the present study was .86.

Homonegativity

Homonegativity was evaluated using the Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS; Morrison & Morrison, 2002). While there are two homonegativity sub-scales (MHS-Gay and MHS-Lesbian), the current study utilized the MHS-Gay because the vignettes only utilized males. The MHS-Gay is composed of 12 items (three reverse scored) on a 5-point Likert-type scale that ranges from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). A higher total score indicates a higher level of homonegativity. Cronbach’s alpha in the present study was .94.

Transphobia

Transphobia was measured using the Transphobia Scale (TS; Nagoshi et al., 2008). The scale is made up of nine items on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). A total score is computed by averaging scores on each of the nine items. Higher scores indicate more transphobic attitudes. Internal reliability for the present study was .91.

Interfaith intolerance

Interfaith intolerance was measured using The Interfaith Intolerance Scale (IIS; Crosby & Varela, 2014). The scale is designed to measure “a general in-group bias for the affiliation of the respondent and a disregard for communion with individuals or aspects of another affiliation,” (p. 201). It is comprised of 14 items using a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). A higher overall score indicates more interfaith intolerance. Cronbach’s alpha was .88 in the present study.

Crime vignette

Based on vignettes in previous literature (e.g., Cramer, Kehn, et al., 2013), participants received one of four hate-crime manipulations with information about the perpetrator and victim, as well as details of the crime (second-degree murder). The only variation in the vignettes was instructions that indicated the crime to be a race-, sexual orientation-, transgender-based, or religion-based hate crime.²

Sentencing

Consistent with the way federal sentencing guidelines are administered, participants were informed of the appropriate sentencing guidelines. They were given the opportunity to determine their own sentence for the perpetrator by years and months and informed there was no minimum or maximum amount of time to assign.

Blame attribution

Blame of both perpetrator and victim was measured using the Perceptions of Perpetrator and Victim Blame Scales (PPBS/PVBS; Rayburn et al., 2003). Depending on the instructions, the same scale can be used to measure blameworthiness of perpetrator or victim. This scale consists of 14 bipolar adjective pair ratings (e.g., careful vs. reckless) that total for a score reflecting the blameworthiness of either the perpetrator or victim in the vignette contingent on the instructions; higher scores indicate more blameworthiness. Internal reliability for the current study was .92 for the PPBS and .95 for the PVBS.

HCBS

An initial item pool of 50 items (see Table 1) was developed for further testing in the present proposal. While there was no formal pretest of items, the item pool was reviewed and refined with input from additional psychology researchers with expertise in hate crimes, victimization, and psychometrics prior to exposure to factor analyses. Participants indicated their agreement or disagreement of the statements using a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Consistent with scale development conventions (DeVellis, 2012), reverse-coded items were developed as part of the item pool. Item order on the scale was determined using a random number generator. Item content was largely derived from themes evident in the hate-crime literature (see review in the introduction). Specifically, the following themes were used to guide item design: (a) support of hate-crime legislation because hate crimes are morally offensive and deserving of more punishment (e.g., Adams, 2005; for example, “Offenders who commit a bias motivated crime deserve more punishment than other people”), (b) beliefs that offenders deserve harsher punishment for causing more psychological pain to victims (e.g., Gerstenfeld, 2011; Sullaway, 2004; for example, “Hate crime perpetrators cause psychological trauma to their victims”), (c) hate-crime legislation as deterrence (e.g., Gerstenfeld, 2011; Sullaway, 2004; for example, “Harsher punishments for hate crime perpetrators will reduce the occurrence of retaliation by the victimized group”), (d) favor for hate-crime legislation because hate crimes have a wider impact than other crimes and affect more than just the victim of the crime (e.g., Gerstenfeld, 2011; for example, “Crimes against African Americans are threatening to racial minorities at large”), (e) First Amendment rights being violated when legislation punishes an offender based on their beliefs (e.g., Bessel, 2010; Gerstenfeld, 2011; for example, “Hate speech should be protected by the first amendment”), (f) hate-crime prosecution overtaxes the legal system (e.g., Glaser, 2005; for example, “Prosecutors spend too much time pursuing hate crimes”), (g) the attention hate crimes receive sensationalizes the crime (e.g., Dunbar & Molina, 2004; for example, “The media makes hate crimes into a bigger deal than they actually are”), and (h) hate-crime legislation opposition because the legislation acts as double jeopardy (e.g., Nearpass, 2003; for example, “Charging someone with a separate hate crime charge is excessive prosecution”).

Table 1.

HCBS Exploratory Factor Analysis Factor Loadings.

HCBS Item	Negative Beliefs	Offender Punishment	Deterrence	Victim Harm
31. I believe hate crimes receive too much attention.	.86	−.48	−.30	−.19
41. Hate-crime victims receive too much attention.	.86	−.41	−.23	−.14
32. Prosecutors spend too much time pursuing hate crimes.	.84	−.45	−.29	−.13
28. The media makes hate crimes into a bigger deal than they actually are.	.81	−.40	−.29	−.28
29. Hate-crime law protection of African Americans is unnecessary.	.74	−.42	−.21	−.19
5. Crimes against transgender individuals receive too much attention in the news.	.70	−.19	−.06	−.22
23. Prosecuting someone for his or her offense with an additional charge of a “hate crime” against a sexual minority is excessive.	.67	−.50	−.16	−.22
25. Charging someone with a separate hate-crime charge is excessive prosecution.	.67	−.62	−.28	−.23
33. Crimes against people with disabilities have limited impact on the community at large.	.66	−.25	−.03	.06
21. Crimes against transgender people are not hate crimes.	.61	−.22	−.01	−.05
50. I believe we should not have to keep track of hate-crime statistics.	.61	−.37	−.25	−.07
15. I do not believe that gay, lesbian, or bisexual people should be protected by hate-crime legislations.	.60	−.36	−.09	−.15
27. A crime against someone based on religious group membership is not a hate crime.	.60	−.18	−.03	.01
49. Hate crimes against Jewish people rarely occur.	.59	−.21	−.05	.01
4. Hate-crime legislation supports or protects too many minority groups.	.58	−.19	−.05	−.29
39. Reporting requirements concerning hate crimes are too strict.	.56	−.33	−.17	−.02
20. Hate crimes are rare.	.55	−.21	−.02	.11
35. People who engage in hate crimes are exercising their right to free speech.	.55	−.13	.02	.20
12. Having to report crimes against transgender people is unnecessary.	.51	−.08	.05	−.04
19. Hate-crime law protections should include crimes against people with disabilities.^a	−.50	.46	.25	.14
45. Hate-crime perpetrators cause psychological trauma to their victims.^a	−.47	.30	.15	.10
40. I do not believe hate crimes violate the First Amendment.	.45	−.18	−.02	.15
17. Sexual orientation bias-motivated crimes are threatening to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community at large.^a	−.45	.30	.04	.18
16. Evidence of bias motivation in a crime should be an aggravating factor in sentencing.^a	−.43	.76	.33	.32
11. Evidence that a crime was motivated by hate should increase a prison sentence.^a	−.42	.88	.40	.32
1. Hate-crime perpetrators cause their victims to experience anxiety and fearfulness.^a	−.42	.39	.20	−.02
22. Crimes against people that are physically impaired are threatening to the entire community of people with disabilities.^a	−.40	.34	.15	.08
6. A hate-crime offender should receive a lengthier prison sentence.	−.35	.87	.36	.34
2. Offenders who commit a bias-motivated crime deserve more punishment than other people.	−.33	.83	.37	.40
24. Offenders who target African Americans based on their race deserve a longer prison sentence.	−.39	.77	.37	.41
9. Those who commit crimes based on bias should pay more damages to the victim.	−.36	.76	.40	.38
43. Harsher punishments for hate-crime perpetrators will reduce the occurrence of retaliation by the victimized group.	−.31	.42	.74	.36
8. Harsh punishments of hate-crime offenders will decrease the likelihood of future hate crimes.	−.10	.37	.84	.29
18. Hate-crime legislation will decrease the occurrence of hate crimes.	−.25	.38	.83	.40
30. Legislation including people with disabilities will discourage crimes against this group of people.	−.13	.35	.75	.29
46. Victims of religious-based bias crimes endure greater mental suffering than other victims.	−.06	.25	.30	.74
48. Jewish people who are victims of hate crimes deserve more damages.	−.01	.35	.32	.69
36. Bias-motivated crimes are worse than non-bias-motivated crimes.	−.05	.48	.29	.68
26. Victims of hate crime suffer more trauma than victims of other crimes.	−.15	.46	.35	.68
44. Crimes against African Americans are threatening to racial minorities at large.	−.51	.38	.37	.43
3. African Americans who have been the victim of a hate crime are likely to be more fearful.	−.37	.27	.17	.25
7. Hate crimes cost more money than regular crimes to prosecute.	.33	−.06	−.04	.02
10. Offenses against transgender people are particularly malicious.	−.35	.48	.27	.26
13. Offenders who commit crimes against sexual orientation minorities are monsters.	−.33	.39	.12	.03
14. “Hate speech” should be protected by the first amendment.	.21	−.14	−.12	−.02
34. Perpetrators who commit bias-motivated crimes are morally depraved.	−.15	.39	.13	.10
37. Victims of hate crimes are distrustful of society.	−.11	.08	.09	.15
38. Hate-crime perpetrators are punished for acting on their own beliefs.	.32	−.05	.03	.04
42. Society should be less tolerant of people who target minorities.	−.26	.22	.03	.22
47. Perpetrators of hate crimes deserve longer prison sentences.	−.43	.85	.40	.45

Note. Items retained on that factor are in bold. HCBS = Hate Crime Beliefs Scale.

Reverse-scored item.

Items were also informed by pertinent theoretical perspectives (i.e., blame attribution and modern prejudice), as well as empirical hate-crime public perception and jury decision-making literature (see literature reviews in the introduction). For example, given the potent influence of victim and offender blame on fact-finder decisions, many items were developed specific to the offender’s (e.g., “Those who commit crimes based on bias should pay more damages to the victim”) potential responsibility or rectification for a hate crime. Modern prejudice drove item development in such ways as inclusion about beliefs of a range of minority groups (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender [LGBT] community, African Americans) and general negative views (e.g., “Hate-crime victims receive too much attention”). Public perception literature (e.g., Johnson & Byers, 2003; Rayburn et al., 2003) also supported inclusion of multiple minority groups in the item pool. Jury decision-making literature, highlighting factors such as enhanced offender punishment, deterrence, and support for the legislation, also informed item development on these topics. Finally, as the legislation addresses several of the themes that appear in hate-crime legislation literature, we were reflective of this in item design, including items that referred to divisive attitudes toward legislation. For example, hate-crime opponents disagree on which groups ought to receive protection under the legislation (e.g., Gerstenfeld, 2011; Johnson & Byers, 2003; for example, “A crime against someone based on religious group membership is not a hate crime”). While the legislation has attempted to address this issue and a majority of the states have enacted penalty-enhancing hate-crime law, the groups they protect differ considerably (Anti-Defamation League, 2013; Gerstenfeld, 2011). Consistent with the way that hate-crime data are collected (28 U.S.C. 534) and consistent with legislation (HCPA, 2009; P. L. No. 111-84), we included items about multiple minority groups in the item pool.

Procedure

The study was conducted online through SurveyMonkey, which enabled participation by clicking on a link provided in the invitation to participate within MTurk. When potential participants clicked on the link to the current study within MTurk, they were taken to a webpage that described the study, consent procedure, and contact information for the University’s Institutional Review Board and primary investigators. Consent included information on confidentiality, risks and benefits, anonymity, and the right to withdraw from the study. Also, they were notified that clicking through implied consent to participate. If they decided to participate, they completed several individual difference measures, read one of four randomly assigned hypothetical hate-crime vignettes and answered questions related to the vignette they read. Ninety-three participants (23.1%) viewed the sexual orientation manipulated crime vignette, 118 (29.3%) viewed the transgender manipulation, 96 (23.8%) viewed the religion manipulation, and 96 (23.8%) viewed the race manipulation. Participants were automatically paid US$0.25 through MTurk for their participation in the study upon finishing the survey.

Results

Hypothesis 1

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to evaluate potential multiple factors of the HCBS. EFA specification included a standard principal factor, oblique promax rotation with Kaiser normalization approach. These parameters were selected to evaluate the expected possibility of correlated factors and to identify an ideally simple structure. As is consistent with the legal perception scale development literature (e.g., Cramer, Nobles, et al., 2013), a factor-loading cutoff of 0.40 was used for retaining items. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) Measure of Sampling value, which examines presence of meaningful relationships among the items, was ideal (KMO = .93). In addition, the Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity suggested meaningful correlations among the factors, χ²(1225) = 10,918.81, p < .001.

Factor loading patterns (see Table 1), in conjunction with conceptually meaningful relationships among grouped items, were then used to determine the ideal factor structure. Where items loaded on more than one factor, they were either retained solely on the highest loading factor, or the factor on which the item was in line with themes identified in the item pool summary. In addition, items were dropped either due to low factor loadings, or conceptual redundancy or misfit. Four factors emerged from the original 50-item scale, retaining a total of 40 items. Twenty-seven of the 50 items loaded on Factor 1 (loadings range = −.40-.86, eigenvalue = 14.95) and accounted for 29.91% of the variance. Five items loaded on a second factor (loadings range = .42-.87, eigenvalue = 5.03) and accounted for 10.07% of the variance. Three items loaded on a third factor (loadings range = .75-.84, eigenvalue = 1.89) and accounted for 3.78% of the variance. Five items loaded on a fourth factor (loadings range = .43-.74, eigenvalue = 1.70) and accounted for 3.39% of the variance. Overall, the four factors accounted for 50.17% of the variance in hate-crime-related beliefs. These results demonstrate that four underlying pieces of hate-crime beliefs exist, including Factor 1: Negative Beliefs (i.e., higher scores denote negative views of hate-crime legislation and number of protected groups; α = .95), Factor 2: Offender Punishment (i.e., higher scores reflect greater support for penalty enhancement; α = .84), Factor 3: Deterrence (i.e., higher scores denote greater beliefs that legislation serves as a deterrent; α = .79), and Factor 4: Victim Harm (i.e., higher scores reflect endorsement of support for victim damages and views that hate-crime victims suffer more than others; α = .74). HCBS sub-scales displayed significant small to large correlations with one another (range = −.23-.61; see Table 2) in expected directions. An HCBS total score was not tabulated in light of high scores reflecting both positive and negative views depending on the sub-scale.

Table 2.

Correlation Coefficients Between Levels of Prejudice, Political Orientation, and Sub-Scales of HCBS.

	Negative Beliefs	Offender Beliefs	Deterrence	Harm	Symbolic Racism	Homonegativity	Transphobia	Interfaith Intolerance	Liberal Beliefs
Negative beliefs	—	−.55**	−.23**	−.26**	.44**	.63**	.51**	.49**	−.36**
Offender beliefs		—	.52**	.61**	−.25**	−.33**	−.20**	−.14**	.25**
Deterrence			—	.44**	−.16**	−.14**	−.07	−.003	.12*
Harm				—	−.38**	−.31**	−.17**	.06	.27**
Symbolic racism					—	.54**	.37**	.24**	−.46**
Homonegativity						—	.77**	.52**	−.48**
Transphobia							—	.59**	−.39**
Interfaith intolerance								—	−.31**
Liberal beliefs									—

Correlation is significant at the .05 level. **Correlation is significant at the .01 level. HCBS = Hate Crime Beliefs Scales.

Hypothesis 2

Bivariate correlations were used to evaluate the relationship between political beliefs and HCBS sub-scales (see Table 2 for correlation coefficients).³ As hypothesized, liberal political beliefs were significantly and negatively related to the Negative Views and significantly and positively related to Offender Punishment, Deterrence, and Victim Harm sub-scales.

Hypothesis 3

Bivariate correlations were used to evaluate the relationship between prejudice (i.e., racial-, sexual orientation-, transgender-, and religion-based prejudices) and HCBS sub-scales (see Table 2). As predicted, all four sub-components of the HCBS were significantly related to some type of prejudice, and in expected directions. Negative Beliefs displayed moderate to large positive associations with prejudice, whereas as all other sub-scales demonstrated small-to-moderate associations with prejudice (with a few non-significant).

Hypothesis 4

The following demographics demonstrated significant effects on outcomes, necessitating controlling for them in the main model: gender, race, and jury service. A MANCOVA was used to test the fourth hypothesis.⁴ This MANCOVA contained (a) control variables of gender, race, and jury service; (b) predictor variable main effects for measures of prejudice, HCBS sub-scales, victim type (categorical), and every two-way interaction term between victim type and HCBS sub-scales; and (c) outcome measures of victim blame, perpetrator blame, and sentencing outcome.

Table 3 contains multivariate tests for each predictor in the model. The multivariate main effects of gender, jury service, race, victim type, homonegativity, transphobia, interfaith intolerance, Offender Punishment, Deterrence, and Victim Harm, were non-significant. Negative Views displayed a significant multivariate effect. Significant univariate findings were as follows: Negative Views was significantly and positively associated with victim blame, F(1, 370) = 28.55, p < .001, β = 5.88, SE β = 2.66, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .07; significantly and negatively associated with perpetrator blame, F(1, 370) = 32.51, p < .001, β = −5.29, SE β = 1.99, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .08, and total sentence F(1, 370) = 5.66, p = .02, β = −1.75, SE β = 4.82, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .02.

Table 3.

Multivariate Analysis of Gender, Race, Jury Service, Prejudice Measures, HCBS Sub-Scales, Victim Type, and Two-Way Interactions Between Victim Type and HCBS Sub-Scales.

Effect	Wilks’s Lambda Value	F	Hypothesis df	Error df	Significance	$η_{p}^{2}$
Gender	.99	1.46	3	368	.23	.01
Race	.95	1.32	15	1,016.29	.18	.02
Jury service	.98	2.01	3	368	.10	.02
Victim type	.97	1.28	9	895.77	.25	.01
Symbolic racism	.98	2.44	3	368	.06	.02
Homonegativity	.99	1.58	3	368	.20	.01
Transphobia	.98	2.27	3	368	.08	.02
Interfaith intolerance	1.00	0.45	3	368	.72	.004
Negative views	.89	15.75	3	368	.001	.11
Offender punishment	1.00	1.55	3	368	.20	.01
Deterrence	.99	0.82	3	368	.48	.01
Victim harm	.99	1.34	3	368	.26	.01
Victim Type × Negative Views	.99	0.60	9	895.77	.80	.01
Victim Type × Offender Punishment	.99	0.32	9	895.77	.97	.003
Victim Type × Deterrence	.99	0.60	9	895.77	.80	.01
Victim Type × Victim Harm	.97	1.32	9	895.77	.22	.01

Note. Bold print denotes significant predictor. HCBS = Hate Crime Beliefs Scales.

Discussion

The proposed HCBS resulted in a multifactorial structure with four sub-scales supported by and reflecting common arguments cited in the literature: Negative Beliefs (e.g., Adams, 2005), Offender Punishment (e.g., Cramer, Kehn, et al., 2013), Deterrence (e.g., Saucier, Brown, Mitchell, & Cawman, 2006), and Victim Harm (e.g., Herek et al., 1999). Consistent with previous literature, less prejudicial attitudes and liberal political affiliation were related to pro-victim views and support for hate-crime legislation (e.g., Johnson & Byers, 2003; Spoor, 2004). Extending previous hate-crime research, the Negative Views sub-scale played a predictive role in perceptions of hate-crime victims and offenders; exact patterns are discussed below.

The Negative Beliefs sub-component includes items that range in negative views of hate-crime legislation, public attention to crime, minority group protection, aggravated sentencing, and excessive prosecution. The themes that comprise this sub-scale are consistent with literature showing that individuals who are supportive of hate-crime legislation feel as if hate crimes are morally offensive (e.g., Adams, 2005). In addition, it is consistent with literature that shows that individuals who oppose hate-crime legislation believe that the attention received by hate crimes, in fact, sensationalizes the crime (e.g., Dunbar & Molina, 2004). Furthermore, it is consistent with literature showing that specific types of minority group victims can influence legal and political views concerning hate crimes (e.g., Cramer, Kehn, et al., 2013; Johnson & Byers, 2003). Overall, opponents of hate-crime legislation disagree on which minority groups should receive protection (Gerstenfeld, 2011; Johnson & Byers, 2003).

The Offender Punishment sub-scale is comprised of items that are specific to beliefs concerning appropriate punishment of a hate-crime offender. Higher scores indicate more positive views of hate-crime penalty enhancement and elevated civil damages compared with other crime types. Such notions are consistent with literature showing support for increased punishment for hate-crime offenders, along with increased perpetrator blame (e.g., Cramer, Kehn, et al., 2013).

The third factor that emerged, Deterrence, includes items specific to the idea that hate-crime legislation acts as deterrent for future crimes. Higher scores indicate more positive views of hate-crime legislation effectiveness. Previous literature has shown that advocates of hate-crime legislation believe that that if juries assign higher sentences to hate-crime offenders, others will be less likely to commit this type of crime in the future (Saucier et al., 2006).

The fourth sub-component, Victim Harm, includes items that address the harm endured by the hate-crime victim. Higher scores indicate more supportive victim beliefs. This is consistent with literature demonstrating that victims of hate crimes suffer from more severe episodes of trauma and overall psychosocial harm than other crime victims (e.g., Herek et al., 1999; B. Levin, 1999).

Liberal political beliefs were significantly related to support for hate-crime legislation in all HCBS sub-scales. This finding was expected as Johnson and Byers (2003) found that individuals with liberal beliefs were more likely to support sexual orientation minorities in the legislation. Concerning measures of prejudice and attitudes toward hate-crime legislation, racial, sexual orientation, transgender, and religious prejudice were significantly related to the HCBS sub-scales. This confirms an expected general pattern that is consistent with previous research. Current findings are supported by research that shows higher prejudiced participants present with less favorable attitudes toward hate-crime laws (Spoor, 2004). In addition, Rayburn et al. (2003) found that individuals with sexual orientation prejudicial beliefs were more likely to blame the victim as opposed to the perpetrator indicating that they are less likely to support policy protecting this minority group.

Such findings were expected as hate crimes can be thought of as a form of societal prejudice toward an out-group (Cramer, Wakeman, et al., 2013) and motivated by the prejudice an offender holds toward some aspect of the victim’s identity (Jacobs & Potter, 1998). Because prejudice can result in stereotyping and negative behavior toward minority groups, it is likely that these behaviors would also be reflected through lack of support for legislative and social advocacy efforts in the area of hate-crime prevention (Duckitt, 1992; Spoor, 2004). In addition, research shows that prejudice in many contexts is largely driven by authoritarian personalities and a social dominance orientation, meaning they are likely to adhere to conventional norms, are more punitive toward individuals who do not adhere to such norms, and possess a desire for their in-group to be superior to other out-groups (e.g., Cramer, Miller, Amacker, & Burks, 2013; Duckitt & Sibley, 2007). Research examining traits of prejudiced individuals has shown that individuals who are prejudiced toward one minority group are likely to be prejudiced toward minority groups as a whole (Duckitt & Sibley, 2007). As a result, prejudiced individuals may be less likely to support hate-crime legislation, and endorse lesser deterrence and victim support beliefs, as they hold great levels of unfamiliarity or hostility toward minority groups.

The current study highlighted the importance of the HCBS Negative Views sub-scale. Findings concerning this sub-scale suggested that individuals who demonstrated less negative views (i.e., support) of hate-crime legislation and minority group protection were more likely to attribute greater blame and longer sentences to the perpetrator and less blame to the victim. This pattern extends prior research concerning blame attribution hate crimes (e.g., Cramer, Kehn, et al., 2013; Plumm et al., 2010; Rayburn et al., 2003), as well as public perceptions of hate-crime legislation (e.g., Johnson & Byers, 2003; Sullaway, 2004). The most notable observed pattern was that the Negative Views component of the HCBS accounted for a sizable amount of variance on the collection of legal decisions (as indicated by the multivariate results). This pattern is clarified in that HCBS Negative Views most strongly predicted blame attribution, with a modest sized impact on sentencing recommendations. These findings parallel both blame attribution and public perception literatures in that a well-defined set of negative views of the legislation (e.g., protecting too many minority groups, excessive prosecution) are implicated in pro-offender and anti-victim perceptions in the context of bias-motivated crimes.

Implications for Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice

Present results provide novel empirical and conceptual insights, especially with regard to issues of diversity. In a field where literature is primarily driven from a philosophical and legal standpoint, the HCBS offers a comprehensive measure to capture beliefs in a quantifiable manner. The HCBS offers four literature-supported sub-scales that suggest beliefs about hate crimes may fall into four categories. Furthermore, results of the present study suggest that the Negative Views sub-scale, comprised of beliefs about public attention to crime, minority group protection, aggravated sentencing, and excessive prosecution, are the most important in terms of legal decision-making. While research in this area exists, the present study pulls together piecemeal literatures and offers a more quantifiable picture in understanding beliefs about hate crimes. Conceptually speaking, the structure of negative views and associations with indicators of modern prejudice offer preliminary support for the idea that negative views of hate crimes may represent an extension of modern prejudice (Nelson, 2006), especially with respect to negative views of minority group projection.

Theoretical implications apply to blame attribution models. From a legal perspective, blame attribution theory is a way of understanding how an individual processes a crime and determines culpability of those involved (Gudjonsson, 1984; Shaver, 1985). Blame attribution toward both victims and offenders has been shown to affect the outcome of court cases (Gudjonsson, 1984; Idisis, Ben-David, & Ben-Nachum, 2007). For example, previous research has indicated that attitudes toward minority group members are associated with the blame assigned to a sexual orientation minority victim (Plumm et al., 2010). The current study builds on this line of research by utilizing a nationally representative sample to replicate differential assessment of blame and punishment based upon type of victim (e.g., Cramer et al., 2014; Cramer, Kehn, et al., 2013) and prejudicial belief systems (e.g., Plumm et al., 2010). In addition, this line of research builds upon previous research by assessing for specific types of prejudice. This is the first study to our knowledge to simultaneously examine the role of symbolic racism, faith-based prejudice, sexual prejudice, and transphobia in the blame attribution and sentencing process. Importantly, results demonstrated that no forms of self-reported prejudice influenced perceptions of blame or sentencing recommendations, again echoing the idea that domain-specific attitudes may be a better predictor of legal outcomes in hate crimes when compared with general domains of prejudice.

Implications from the present study may be relevant to future hate-crime policy. Given that attitudes can impact legislation (Roberts & Stalans, 2004), having an understanding of an individual’s beliefs concerning hate-crime laws may be useful for future policy development and implementation. In addition, although blame attribution is not monitored by specific policy in the way that sentencing is, research has illustrated that blame attribution plays a role in sentencing recommendations (Cramer et al., 2010). In the present study, individuals holding less negative views toward hate-crime legislation/minority group protection (i.e., greater support) were more likely to attribute blame to the perpetrator instead of the victim and assign longer sentences to the perpetrator. These blame attribution and sentencing patterns hold relevance for hate-crime victims and compliance with federal policy. Regarding negative views, jurors lower in negative views tended to follow policy in regard to sentencing enhancement for perpetrators whereas high negative view counterparts did not. If placed in the context of the HCPA, it may be necessary to remedy lack of follow through with policy via judicial instruction or careful pre-trial jury selection for biases in the area of negative views. Such instruction may benefit from being composed in lay friendly phrasing in light of data suggesting jurors may not comprehend complex jury instructions (Lynch & Haney, 2000). Psycho-education by attorneys or experts during jury selection or at trial may further assist in bringing to light the logic of following the HCPA for jurors otherwise unfamiliar with aspects of the law.

Practice implications may be especially relevant to trial consulting, as professionals in the field often rely on empirical data to inform assisting attorneys with jury selection or trial strategy (e.g., Brodsky, 2009; Cramer, Adams, & Brodsky, 2009). The present study offers findings that may be useful in both jury selection and trial strategy for a hate-crime trial, as case-specific attitudes tend to be strong predictors of legal decisions and trial outcomes (Cramer et al., 2009; Lieberman & Sales, 2007). Specifically, findings from the present study suggest that an area to be covered during jury selection may include general negative views toward hate crimes, as this were the strongest predictors of sentencing outcomes and blame attribution in the current study. Use of this construct could be implemented in a number of ways. For instance, to strike or “de-select” biased jurors, as is the goal in jury selection (Brodsky, 2009), consultants may question a potential jury member via juror questionnaire or in-court query concerning their views in these areas. Items and phrasing from this HCBS sub-scale could be useful in this process, keeping in the mind the reliability and validity limitations of altering response formats of established measures. Another area in which specific attitudes toward hate-crime legislation and prejudicial beliefs are important is in developing trial strategy. Current findings may be useful for trial consulting in regard to emphasizing themes in a potential bias crime case. As negative views toward the legislation proved to be the most important aspects in predicting sentencing recommendations and blame, this may be an area of increased focused in a hate-crime trial. For example, in a trial involving an African American victim, the defense may implement case themes emphasizing the need to protect minority group persons overall to level the playing field for vulnerable groups.

Limitations and Future Directions

Methodological limitations included the use of electronic completion of survey materials and the use of vignettes. Due to this type of procedure, individuals in the current study were not able to deliberate in the way that jurors would in a real court case. While this type of methodology is consistent with other hate-crime studies (i.e., Cramer et al., 2014; Cramer, Kehn, et al., 2013), it limits the external validity of current findings. In addition, we did not collect information from respondents on prior victimization or other personal experience with hate crimes. Given that this is an important consideration for this topic as it may influence perceptions, this limits the results of the study. Furthermore, the current research was developed in a U.S. context. Scale development and conceptualization reflects U.S. legislation and political attitudes. This may limit the ability of the scale to be applied more broadly outside the United States. In addition to the current sample being limited to U.S. participants, it was also limited in race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and religion.

Future research could improve upon such limitations by using actual jury members who are given the opportunity to deliberate as they would in a real court case. Future research could collect information about prior victimization and hate-crime occurrences as well as address the role this may play in perception of hate crimes. In addition, future research may benefit from including other minority groups based on additional ethnicities, disability, age, and other common types of common hate-crime victims (FBI, 2012). In addition to the inclusion of other groups, future research may investigate the utility of such an instrument outside the United States and use a sample that is more diverse in national origin, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and religion. Finally, future research could expand upon this area of research by conducting further validation studies to replicate the HCBS factor structure across different samples and settings.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Mollimichelle K. Cabeldue, MA, is a doctoral student in clinical psychology pursuing a concentration in forensic psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Prior to that, she completed a Master of Arts in clinical psychology at Sam Houston State University. Her research interests include hate crimes, forensic assessment, and offender victimization.

Robert J. Cramer, PhD, is an associate professor of community and environmental health sciences at Old Dominion University. His research interests include hate crimes, suicide and interpersonal violence, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) health, and trial consulting.

Andre Kehn, PhD, is an assistant professor of experimental forensic psychology at the University of North Dakota. His research interests include child witness credibility, hate crimes, and experimental methods.

James W. Crosby, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology at Sam Houston State University. His research interests include bullying, school psychology, and the psychology of religion.

Jeffrey S. Anastasi, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology at Sam Houston State University. His research interests include own race bias, eyewitness memory, and cognitive psychology.

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