Criminological Aspects of Hate Crime

Criminological Aspects of Hate Crime Abstract Hate crime refers to a set of crimes committed for a prejudicial motive against a group of people for their essential personality characteristics such as nationality, religion, or sexual orientation. Topicality of the issue stems from the fact that related social phenomena such as racism, xenophobia, radicalisation, or discrimination of minorities are far from being satisfactorily dealt with even in Western society. The fundamental goal of this thesis is to provide the reader with a comprehensive criminological view of hate crimes in the territory of the Czech Republic. Main findings include the following: the concept of hate crime is not unified in theory nor legislation in terms of protected characteristics, which negatively translates into research and policy of hate crime. The quantity of registered crime is in the order of less than 200 crimes per year, its trend is downward, and its structure is predominantly non-violent; unfortunately, it is also accompanied by high latency. The Czech perpetrator is usually male and a repeat offender, in early adulthood, with a basic education and without a factual relationship to extremist groups. Victims of violent forms of hate crime are, in principle, suffering more intense harm (especially psychological) than victims..