Social policy director catalogues hate crimes

The recent death of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student beaten to death on account of his homosexuality, put hate crimes in the national spotlight. But Donald Green, professor of political science and director of Yale's Institute for Social and Policy Studies, researched this disturbing problem more than a decade ago. Green sat down with the Herald to discuss his research on hate crime patterns.

JULIA TIERNAN/YH Political science professor and policy director Donald Green concluded that reaching a high level of integration leads to fewer hate crimes in the area.

From 1987 to 1995, Green collaborated with Yale psychology professors to monitor crimes committed in New York City against gays, ethnic minorities, and Jews. Regarding gays, the research team measured the association between the density of the gay population in an area and the number of homophobic crimes committed. Green explained that the study was meant to answer the question, "To what extent does hate crime follow the gay population?" His findings convinced him that "a gay neighborhood is a magnet of hate crime."

According to Green, the case involving Shepard "shared many of the classic features of hate crime." The killing was committed by a group of people. Green said, "[A hate crime] is a group activity--it's showing your mettle to your friends. These crimes become grisly because there's bravado involved." Given what he has observed about crimes against gays, Green was also not surprised that women were present during the attack on Shepard. "[For attackers] there's something about proving their manliness in front of women," Green said.

According to Green, people who engage in hate crimes don't view their victims as people, but rather as "subhuman." He added, "The perpetrators are often surprised when they're caught; they feel that they're expressing the mores of society." Green pointed out that many Americans probably wondered why the crime against Shepard had generated such great national media and political attention.

To promote greater awareness of the need for fairness towards all victims, Green conducts training with the New Haven Police Academy. "I hammer on the fundamental principle that no one is beneath the law," he said. "No one is so hated that they can be attacked with impunity." He also stresses to officers that their personal feelings must not affect their approach to police work.

The studies Green and his colleagues conducted also examined the rates of violence against minorities such as Asians, African- Americans, and Hispanics. Their research, to be published soon in the American Journal of Sociology, was, according to Green, intended to disprove the "long-standing thesis that hard [economic] times breed racial antipathy." Green used the example of the recent gay bashings to support that claim, stating, "Here we are in a tremendous economic boom; nonetheless, grisly tortures and murders [with gay victims] have been occurring in places like Wyoming and Texas. These incidents happen because patterns of hate crime have little do with economic activity."

The upcoming article argues that the rapid influx of a non-white group in a racially homogeneous area causes hate crimes. Green noted that the research focuses on "uncoordinated hate crimes done by unorganized assailants." More simply, his thesis contrasts street crime thug behavior with organized groups like racist political parties or the Ku Klux Klan.

The best example of this dichotomy, according to Green, was the situation in eastern Germany after the reunification of the country in the '80s. Western Germany had already received an influx of workers of various backgrounds, so it became the East's turn to receive refugees seeking asylum. Green said, "Take all sorts of deserted schools and homes and fill them with Turks and Romanians, and [you've got] visible targets." The problem worsened to the point that the government shut off immigration.

New Haven also experienced the social turmoil of integration when the city government instituted a scattered housing policy. Green explained that the policy gave housing vouchers to impoverished New Haven citizens to "get the poor out of the ghetto." Residents of overwhelmingly white neighborhoods protested and even burned buildings to the ground. "What happened in New Haven was a microcosm of the German state," Green said.

Green is now convinced that "if you reach a point of high level of integration, like 50-50, few hate crimes will occur." He explained that in the short run, integration breeds violence. In the long run, though, it leads to the acceptance and accommodation of minorities.

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