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RECENT HATE CRIMES LINKED TO FREE SPEECH: UIC EXPERT
Recent shooting sprees, like the Fourth of July weekend rampage by Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, can be directly linked to a strong tradition of free speech that protects even the most offensive forms of expression, said Jess Maghan, associate professor of criminal justice and director of the Center for Research in Law and Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
"Hatreds based on identities, lifestyles, cultural values and tastes appear to have a historic continuity and keep simmering across generations," writes Maghan in Hate Crime: the Global Politics of Polarization. "Thus, a reservoir of biases and bitter memories are widely shared within groups. These can act as a flash point for violent antagonism in times of hardship where ambitious leaders seek to prod their constituencies into violence."
In Hate Crime, Maghan and co-editor Robert J. Kelley, a professor of social science at Brooklyn College, bring together a collection of essays that address the problem of hate crimes head-on. The previously unpublished essays explore the international phenomenon of hate crimes, examining the socio-psychological dynamics of these crimes and the settings in which they occur, the relationships between offender and victims, and the legal and law enforcement response to these crimes.
Maghan insists the religious dimension of terrorism - evident in the Benjamin Smith case - adds a greater danger to hate crimes.
"These extremist sects and groups appeal to many people in an anti-spiritual age because they combine their empowering theology with a warm, supportive social environment, at least at first. Once in the close-knit group of believers, converts encounter a darker side filled with paranoid delusions about enemies and divine demands for vengeance," he writes.
The concept of hate crimes, as it is employed in the United States, refers to specific criminal behaviors or acts that are motivated by prejudice based upon gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or other identified categories that vary from state to state. Other terms such as "bias-motivated" and "ethnoviolence" have been utilized to describe these acts.
"Hate crime is about what is, more than what might be," writes Maghan. "It involves some of our deepest and darkest instincts. Although moral and ethical principles are basic to the understanding of the problem of hate crimes, it should not be supposed that effectively coping with the problems can be done without social understanding."
Maghan is associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His career includes extensive government service as an executive in corrections and law enforcement at the municipal, state, and national level. He is a former director of training of the New York City Police Department and commissioner for training of the New York City Department of Correction, the world's largest municipal detention service. He is an adult educator, specializing in entry police training, bias and hate crimes, police intelligence and investigation strategies, integrity and ethical awareness, minority and mixed-gender work force integration strategies.
With 25,000 students, the University of Illinois at Chicago is the largest and most diverse university in the Chicago area. UIC is home to the largest medical school in the United States and is one of the 88 leading research universities in the country. Located just west of Chicago's Loop, UIC is a vital part of the educational, technological and cultural fabric of the area.
(Note to Editors: Maghan is available for interviews after July 15. For more of Maghan's research, visit his home page at http://www.uic.edu/depts/cjus/crjhomep.html. The book Hate Crime: Global Politics of Polarization was recipient of the Elmer H. Johnson and Carol Holmes Johnson Series in Criminology Award, 1998.)
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