When Words Alone Don’t Suffice: Employing a Systematic Approach in Measuring Offender Bias Motivation
Abstract
The challenge of determining bias motivation in hate crime offenders was examined with the Bias Motivation Profile-Revised (BMP-R), a rating guide that measures behavioral, historical, and ideological indicators of suspect motivation to commit a hate crime. In review of 551 hate crime cases, the BMP-R rating criteria revealed adequate external validity in classifying hate crimes from non-hate motivated crimes and non-criminal “hate incidents”, as independently determined by crime investigators. The BMP-R criteria were related to offender pre-meditation, and revealed a significant predictive relationship to hate crimes involving violence to the person. Offender differences on the BMP-R were noted for gender and age, with modest race/ethnic differences being observed. These findings illustrate the importance of examining bias motivation in terms of an array of criteria, independent of the element of hate speech, in the assessment of hate crime offenders....