The Effects of Hate Groups on Hate Crimes

This paper presents a simple theoretical model to analyze the relationship between hate groups and hate crimes. This paper focuses on two important roles of hate groups; as providers of membership benefits for group members and as a coordination device for leadership. This paper shows that this interaction implies the possibility of multiple equilibria of the crime rate. This result explains why hate crimes and extreme criminal activities vary across communities and over time, and why a social shock such as 9/11 resulted in a rapid increase of hate crimes. Moreover, if hate groups work as coordination devices, the existence of hate groups may increase hate crimes. This result supports recent empirical results analyzing relationships between hate groups and hate crimes.