Elliot Gamelin
University of New Haven
Hate crimes against individuals in the LGBTQ+ community have disproportionately higher rates than those not in the LGBTQ+ community (McCann & Boateng, 2022; Walters et al., 2020). Although a well-recognized issue, the United States has failed to implement consistent nationwide policies aimed at addressing hate crimes. Furthermore, the inaccurate data amongst various federal and state databases, such as the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data, show how these inconsistencies have made it difficult to appropriately classify and report hate crimes against LGBTQ+ individuals (McCann & Boateng, 2022). This policy brief explores the issue of LGBTQ+ hate crimes, evaluates current policies aimed at reducing LGBTQ+ hate crimes, and recommends a federally funded approach that promotes consistency. Using federal funding to aid officers in learning appropriate reporting requirements and increasing accountability for noncompliance provides the most thorough plan to improve hate crime data accuracy across the United States.
Context & Importance of the Problem
Historically, through misclassification and underreporting, the United States has struggled to support LGBTQ+ victims of bias-motivated crimes. Reporting inaccuracy is most evident when comparing Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data, which is derived from police reports, and National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) responses, which is a nationally representative random sample of U.S. households. While the UCR continues to report low counts of hate crimes, the NCVS has consistently highlighted very high rates of victimization among LGBTQ+ individuals (McCann & Boateng, 2022; Walters et al., 2020). The NCVS, which collects information directly from households, can capture unreported hate crimes, while the UCR only uses police reports (McCann & Boateng, 2022; O’Donovan, 2022). Pezzella and colleagues (2019) review UCR and NCVS data from 2004 to 2012 and found that UCR reported about 8,770 hate crime incidents within this time, while NCVS was reporting about 269,000 hate crime victimizations per year. This disparity grows even larger when reviewing hate crime data amongst LGBTQ+ victims, with NCVS data from 2017 to 2019 suggesting that individuals in the LGBTQ+ community experience hate crime victimization at a rate of 6.6 per 1,000 people versus a rate of 0.6 per 1,000 people for those who were not in the community (Flores et al., 2022). Many jurisdictions also report to the UCR as having zero hate crimes annually, causing concern relating to appropriate reporting (Grattet & Jenness, 2008; Power & Lantz, 2025).
In addition to the lack of accurate reporting, underreporting can also stem from the distrust LGBTQ+ individuals have in their local police. People within the LGBTQ+ community, especially transgender and non-White individuals, experience negative and dismissive behavior from law enforcement more frequently than White, heterosexual individuals (Stenersen et al., 2022; Walters et al., 2020). LGBTQ+ victims also experience high rates of secondary victimization and re-traumatization through interactions with criminal justice practitioners (Vergani & Navarro, 2023). Even when hate crimes are reported without dismissal or re-traumatization, misclassification can arise; police officers may (1) not know how to properly file a hate crime report due to inconsistent state statutes, (2) have a hard time determining whether the crime was motivated by bias, or (3) choose not to identify it as a hate crime against an LGBTQ+ individual to due person beliefs (Bakken, 2002; Cabeldue et al., 2018; Fallik et al., 2024; Grattet & Jenness, 2008).
Misclassification and underreporting of LGBTQ+ hate crimes harm the LGBTQ+ community and their relationship with law enforcement. Furthermore, misclassification and underreporting make current hate crime data inaccurate and unreliable, and hinder the ability of lawmakers to effectively assess the issue and implement effective resolutions to reduce the rate of hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people.
Pre-existing Policies
Various policies have been implemented throughout the United States that aim to reduce hate crime victimization, reduce misclassification of bias-motivated crimes, and increase hate crime reporting. These policies range from state-level initiatives and statutes to federal acts and programs. While these pre-existing initiatives highlight the criminal justice system’s recognition of the underreporting and misclassification struggles surrounding hate crimes, empirical research shows that the inconsistency of these policies has led to an overall lack of efficiency.
Hate Crime Statutes
In the United States, 46 states have adopted some form of hate crime statute, recognizing in the criminal justice system that the perpetrators of bias-motivated crimes will receive additional legal consequences (Fallik et al., 2024). Unfortunately, states have varying definitions of hate crime with different legal requirements involved. These differences in hate crime definitions have led to inconsistencies in the reporting and classification of hate crimes (Grattet & Jenness, 2008). While hate crime statutes can lead to increased reporting, their effectiveness is largely conditioned by the quality of officer training (Vergani & Navarro, 2023) and the leniency in hate crime reporting guidelines (McDevitt et al., 2002).
Throughout the United States, statutes differ significantly in terms of (1) what groups are seen as being “vulnerable,” (2) the “protections” offered to vulnerable individuals, and (3) the burden of proof necessary for hate crime charges (Fallik et al., 2024). This means that LGBTQ+ victimization could be seen as a hate crime in one state but not in neighboring states. This creates uneven protection across the nation not just for the LGBTQ+ community, but for other marginalized groups of people who face hate-motivated victimization, further leading to inconsistent and inaccurate state-level and U.S. data. Research suggests that combining consistent hate crime statutes and appropriate training for criminal justice practitioners can improve the reputability and reliability of hate crime reporting (Grattet & Jenness, 2008). However, the inconsistent definition of hate crime across U.S. states reduces the accuracy of national hate crime data and hinders policymakers’ capacity to reduce hate crimes against LGBTQ+ individuals.
Training and Guidelines for Reporting
Police departments throughout the United States provide bias-motivated training sessions to improve officers’ identification and reporting of hate crimes. These training programs include learning about (1) different forms of bias, (2) experiences of bias within marginalized communities, and (3) accurately filing hate crime reports (McDevitt et al., 2002; Vergani & Navarro, 2023). While training for officers can be useful in increasing their understanding of marginalized communities and improving their reporting skills, many programs are not mandated and the training is not reinforced following the program (Fallik et al., 2024). Without reinforcement, the consistency and accuracy of reporting hate crimes can diminish over time.
As Cabeldue and colleagues (2018) suggest, the attitudes law enforcement officers have toward hate crimes are deeply rooted, which means that having only one or two training sessions will not provide long-lasting results. Beyond training, it is also important to promote officer accountability and maintain hate crime reporting practices after training (Grattet & Jenness, 2008). A major limitation to “training-only” policies is that they struggle to produce prolonged changes when not paired with other reporting systems or support systems as they place addition burden and greater workload on officers. Altogether, present policies and programs show that officer training is a necessary part of resolving the issue of misclassification and underreporting of LGBTQ+ hate crimes, but it must be paired with other tools to be efficient.
Community-based Programs
When trying to reduce the feeling of fear and distrust amongst citizens, police departments have worked with their communities to establish community-based programs. A common program is a community-based reporting system, where hate crime victims can report a crime to someone who is not a law enforcement officer. Providing alternative methods for reporting crime can (1) improve hate crime reporting, (2) reduce revictimization among hate crime victims, and (3) establish more positive connections between local law enforcement and the LGBTQ+ community (Pezzella et al., 2019). Similar to the previously mentioned policies, community-based programs can increase the rates of reporting and create a better relationship between marginalized communities and the criminal justice system. However, the effectiveness of these programs is based on the type of training received, the guidelines of reporting, and consistent application (Pezzella et al., 2019). If these factors are not implemented, there will not be an increase in accuracy within the data, even if more hate crimes are reported, for policymakers to obtain and use.
Community-based programs do provide some efficient approaches for addressing the underreporting of hate crimes due to limiting law enforcement involvement. Research has found that, most commonly, distrust in law enforcement prevents LGBTQ+ hate crime victims from reporting their victimization (Pezzella et al., 2019). Fortunately, community-based systems such as the Connecticut Hate Crimes Advisory Council, have been found to increase hate crime reporting, which suggests that removing the structural barriers of law enforcement can improve the hate crime reporting process (Reed & Strothers, 2025).
However, it is important to remember that an increase in reports does not automatically mean there will be an improvement in the accuracy of hate crime data. Reports through a third-party program/system will still be sent to local police departments, who may still lack the proper training and understanding of hate crimes to appropriately classify reports. So, community-based programs can help with the underreporting aspect but still struggle to reduce misclassification when not paired with additional law enforcement training, making this another policy that should be paired with multiple programs to create a long-lasting effect.
Federal Programs & Services
At the federal level, multiple programs have been developed and funding allocated to reduce hate crimes. A prime example is the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, where the federal government funded outreach services for victims, various tools for reporting the crimes, and audits of police reports to make sure hate crimes were classified appropriately (Powers & Lantz, 2025). This policy was effective in aiding hate crime victims, showing promising progress in implementing policies. However, this type of service relating to hate crime reporting and classification is not currently consistent on a federal level, and Power and Lantz (2025) have noted significant reductions in reporting standards when federal funding is exhausted. This highlights a further need to develop and implement a uniform and reliable practice for reporting hate crimes (Power & Lantz, 2025).
Policy Options
As discussed, multiple policy options exist for reducing the misclassification and underreporting of LGBTQ+ hate crimes in the United States. Based on the current research, the pros and cons of three policy options are discussed.
Policy Option #1
The first policy option relates to increasing mandatory officer training relating to biased motivations and hate crimes. This training would focus on improving officers’ ability to identify hate crimes and appropriately file hate crime reports.
Pros
This policy can be implemented fairly quickly, because most law enforcement departments already hold mandatory training sessions. Some training material already exists relating to bias-motivated crimes and hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people, which could be implemented in the already-existing sessions. Out of the three policy options, this approach would cost the least for law enforcement departments to implement, is easy to incorporate into existing law enforcement training, and puts little strain on existing department resources. From a political standpoint, especially under the current administration, there should not be any additional issues since this type of training does not directly need to be attached to diversity, equity, and inclusion. This will aid in less resistance to adding this training to police departments across the United States, with an overall improvement in awareness for officers handling hate crime cases.
Cons
While this policy approach is easily implemented, additional training alone has a limited capacity to improve hate crime reporting. As previously mentioned, police training is more effective when implemented along with other forms of training, as prior research suggests that additional training only produces limited short-term improvements (Cabeldue et al., 2018; Grattet & Jenness, 2008). Therefore, consistent and repeated exposure, along with the pairing of additional policies, is necessary for long-term changes to hate crime responses, and to ensure implementation fidelity, departments will need to implement sufficient oversight mechanisms.
Unlike the other two options, this approach only addresses the misclassification of hate crimes. This approach provides little aid in reducing the distrust LGBTQ+ hate crime victims feel toward law enforcement officers, which ultimately contributes to underreporting (Pezzella et al., 2019; Vergani & Navarro, 2023). Overall, the low cost and feasibility of this policy option are shadowed by its limited outcomes, where more work needs to be done on resolving the issue of underreporting.
Policy Option #2
The second policy option relates to third-party reporting for hate crimes. This approach entails establishing a reporting system outside of a local police department, such as creating a community-based organization or online reporting system. In this case, LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations could also aid in collecting and forwarding reports to law enforcement.
Pros
In terms of finances, this approach could be more costly than additional law enforcement training; however, it is not as expensive and requires less resources than larger-scale policy options. Different from the first policy option, this approach does not require victims to directly speak to law enforcement officers, which (1) reduces the possibility of secondary victimization, (2) creates a safer environment to report hate crimes, and (3) reduces discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals within various marginalized groups. The collected data can be easily shared with other hate crime tracking databases to provide a better understanding of hate crimes in the United States.
An additional benefit of this approach is that similar approaches have been shown to be effective. For example, the Connecticut Hate Crimes Advisory Council established an online reporting system for individuals who may not feel comfortable directly reaching out to law enforcement and have seen an increase in hate crime reporting since the implementation of this council in 2021 (Reed & Strothers, 2025). By having this third-party reporting system, a stronger, indirect bond between local police departments and citizens could be created, ultimately leading to increased trust.
Cons
This option is more effective than the first policy option when it comes to the underreporting of hate crimes, however, there is the issue of inconsistent efficiency. These inconsistencies become clearer when looking at the challenges various jurisdictions across the nation face. One downside could be the rapid inundation of hate crime data. As many jurisdictions are, as of yet, not well-suited for handling hate crimes, jurisdictions may find it difficult to discern between hate crimes and false reports. This means jurisdictions would need to take additional steps to appropriately verify each reported instance of hate-motivated victimization. Also, while the first option targets misclassification rather than underreporting, this policy does the opposite: it increases the volume of reporting without knowing whether they are accurately classified, which is a major limitation (McCann & Boateng, 2022).
When compared to the third policy option, the feasibility of this approach is inconsistent and largely dependent on local resources. Law enforcement departments in smaller jurisdictions may have difficulty establishing a proper connection with their community or finding an advocacy group in that location to build an efficient third-party reporting system. Even for departments that do not have challenges with this type of outreach, there may be some negative feedback. Since this does involve the partial removal of reliance on the police, political or state-based disapproval could also occur.
Policy Option #3
The third and final policy option relates to gaining federal funding to establish a dedicated hate-motivated crime unit. This would require all law enforcement departments to meet certain standards when reporting and classifying hate crimes if they are going to obtain funding.
Pros
Of the three policies provided, this approach is the most effective for improving both hate crime reporting and classification. This policy establishes a strong incentive for all law enforcement departments to comply with. There are various federal grants through the Department of Justice that could provide financial support and have specific conditions the police departments need to follow to gain that financial support will ensure program fidelity. While the first policy option addresses misclassification and the second option focuses on underreporting, this policy will take care of both issues, as well as provide accurate data that law enforcement departments, federal agencies, and policymakers can use to further support the LGBTQ+ community (Fallik et al., 2024; Grattet & Jenness, 2008).
This approach would also institute a shared set of rules and regulations relating to hate crime reporting in all departments receiving additional funding. Such an approach would increase accountability and accurate reporting, and it could be accompanied by audits and fidelity assessments to ensure that resources are being appropriately allocated. Overall, this policy works with and is funded by the federal government but is independent in its own way; it establishes more reliable data and addresses the disparity between NCVS and UCR reports.
Cons
This policy is the costliest of the policy options, requiring additional federal funding for all departments in the program, which does hinder the program’s feasibility. An additional limitation is the degree of federal oversight over independent police agencies, as some law enforcement departments, even with monetary incentives, may not want the federal government involved in their work. Such oversight might cause hesitancy among agencies that wish to remain independent of federal influence in state-level affairs, which is a challenge not associated with the other two policy options. A further issue is the limited funding, possibly reducing the states and jurisdictions that could receive funding. However, a consistent set of criteria can be used to ensure an equal opportunity for funding.
Policy Recommendation
Out of the previously described policies, the federal funding policy (policy option #3) would be the most effective. Such an approach could address both the underreporting of hate crimes from members of the LGBTQ+ community and the misclassification of hate crimes by law enforcement (Fallik et al., 2024; Grattet & Jenness, 2008; Vergani & Navarro, 2023). By implementing a system that would collect more accurate data and have most, if not all, police departments participate in properly classifying hate crimes to obtain federal funding, there would be a reduction in both underreporting and misclassification. Regarding the funding aspect, various grant programs through the Department of Justice, such as the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, already provide federal funding to law enforcement departments, and such grants could be used to fund this policy approach. Using federal funding specifically for a dedicated hate-crime unit or compliance among officers when it comes to hate crime reporting would create incentive to participate without placing additional constraints of departmental budgets. For the previous policy options, law enforcement training only addresses misclassification, while a third-party reporting system only addresses underreporting.
As stated previously, having reliable data is crucial to implementing efficient policies (McCann & Boateng, 2022; O’Donovan, 2022; Powers & Lantz, 2025). If LGBTQ+ hate crimes continue to be misclassified and underreported, policymakers will have a difficult time understanding how severe this issue is and how to provide helpful victim resources and services. With the requirements of reporting and understanding bias-motivated hate crimes outlined in the federal funding policy option, data will become more reliable, and thus, policymakers will have more evidence-based research to create effective policies. To ensure proper implementation and appropriation of federal funding, the Department of Justice will provide program oversight and assess each department’s implementation of a dedicated hate crime unit. This approach provides more accountability opportunities than the other available policy options; the other two policies rely on law enforcement officers participating in training and third-party community members participating in collecting reports. However, there needs to be further oversight to ensure a positive, long-term change. The oversight already embedded within the federal funding policy aids in the proper documentation of hate crimes, reducing the chance of “zero” hate crimes being reported in multiple states, and intercepting any hate crime incidents that may have previously been ignored (Grattet & Jenness, 2008).
Law enforcement agencies that do not properly implement a hate-crime unit and adopt federal guidelines for hate crime reporting will face consequences through the Department of Justice. Initially, departments that are struggling to adapt to the program standards will receive a warning from the DOJ and be provided with department-specific recommendations for meeting program standards. If law enforcement agencies continue to not meet the program standards, then departments risk losing federal funding. This approach will help improve accountability for all police departments and ensure that all departments receive the help they need to implement a proper hate crime unit.
Overall, a federally funded and consistently implemented local hate crime unit balances accuracy, protection, and oversight, efficiently addressing the current issues of misclassification and underreporting of hate crimes among LGBTQ+ individuals. However, this policy brief only discusses a few of the many options that could be implemented within the criminal justice system to aid LGBTQ+ and other hate crime victims. This information should be used as a part of the foundation in establishing a safer and more trustworthy connection between law enforcement officers and the LGBTQ+ community.
Annotated Bibliography
Bakken, T. (2002). The effects of hate crime legislation: Unproven benefits and unintended consequences. International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 5(4), 231-246. https://doi.org/10.1177/13582291020050040
Bakken (2002) focuses on national data revolving hate crimes, and how the inconsistencies make it harder to determine if state-level statutes are effective. FBI reports are reviewed, where the author states there was a decline in reported hate crimes from 1995 to 1999, even though the perceptions of these crimes increased. Bakken’s (2002) reliance on UCR data is a large limitation, and since the data reviewed is from the mid to late 1990s, its findings could be out of date.
Cabeldue, M. K., Cramer, R. J., Kehn, A., Crosby, J. W., & Anastasi, J. S. (2018). Measuring attitudes about hate: Development of the hate crime beliefs scale. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 33(23), 3656-3685. https://doi.org/10.1177/08860260516636391
Cabeldue et al. (2018) created a Hate Crime Beliefs Scale (HCBS), a Likert-scale-based form that measured prejudice, political beliefs, and recommendations on sentencing. This was sent to 403 individuals nationwide, with results providing the establishment of four subscales: (1) negative beliefs, (2) offender punishment, (3) deterrence, and (4) victim harm. While this scale is useful at its base level to see how some officers may view hate crimes, having only a sample of 403 participants does carry the limitation of generalizability.
Fallik, S. W., Gardner, S. E., Remillard, A., Venuto, T., Atkin-Plunk, C. A., & Dobrin, A. (2024). Defining hate: A content analysis of state hate crime legislation in the United States of America. Victims & Offenders, 19(3), 371-394.
https://doi.org/10.1080/15564886.2022.2140729
Fallik et al. (2024) reviewed various attitudes relating to hate crime legislation in the U.S., including information on how state statutes vary relating to standards of proof and what marginalized communities are viewed as “protected” or “vulnerable” groups. It is expressed that more consistency and improvement must be made to provide legal protection to any American who becomes a victim of a hate crime. This content analysis across all 50 states strongly explains why inconsistencies in each state can lead to the misclassification of hate crimes. On the other hand, it does not measure if states with more detailed statutes have led to an increase and reporting accuracy.
Flores, A. R., Stotzer, R. L., Meyer, I. H., & Langton, L. L. (2022). Hate crimes against LGBT people: National Crime Victim Survey, 2017-2019. PLoS One, 17(12). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279363
Flores and colleagues (2022) use 2017-2019 NCVS data to determine the frequency in LGBTQ+ individuals experiencing hate crime victimization. They found that LGBTQ+ individuals experience violent victimization at a rate of 6.6 per 1,000 people, which is compared to a rate of 0.6 per 1,000 non-LGBTQ+ people. This finding shows there is a significantly higher rate of hate crime victimization among the LGBTQ+ community, with this study being one of the first that nationally reviews sexual orientation and gender identity data.
Grattet, R., & Jenness, V. (2008). Transforming symbolic law into organizational action: Hate crime policy and law enforcement practice. Social Forces, 87(1), 501-528. https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.0.0122
Grattet and Jenness (2008) use police data from California from 1995 to 2002 to test the relationship between hate crime policies and reported hate crimes. Their findings show a strong effect in having appropriate hate crime policies, but state that there needs to be consistency across departments as well as a strong community relationship to see long-lasting effects in reporting. However, the data is only coming from one state, with that state having very comprehensive statutes, which can end up overestimating how efficient hate crime policies are throughout the United States.
McCann, W. S., & Boateng, F. D. (2022). An analysis of hate crime victimization amongst immigrants. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 47, 795-817.
McCann and Boateng (2022) reviewed National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data relating to hate crime reporting, specifically among immigrants. Their findings determined that there are strong relationships between demographic characteristics and the victimization of a hate crime. In addition, the researchers discovered that being an immigrant or part of a marginalized community does increase the odds of becoming a victim of a hate crime. This study does focus on individuals who are immigrants; since it is not a study strongly relating to LGBTQ+ individuals, there is some limitation to how much these findings can correlate to the policy brief’s main topic. However, the findings on hate crime victimization and the data found through NCVS provide support for the broader issue of underreporting.
McDevitt, J., Levin, J., & Bennett, S. (2002). Hate crime offenders: An expanded typology. Journal of Social Issues, 58(2), 303-317. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-4560.00262
McDevitt et al. (2002) aimed to fill a gap in research by studying various motivations of those who commit hate crimes. Police case files from Boston, Massachusetts, were used to define three different types of motive typologies among offenders: (1) thrill, (2) defensive, and (3) mission. This study also addresses various issues regarding culpability when determining the additional legal consequences of committing a hate crime. While this study does have important information, it should be kept in mind that this research is over twenty years old, and it is limited to only one city in one state.
O’Donovan, K. (2022). Hate crime: Critical analysis into whether an evidence-based approach is best in determining what groups are afforded protection in hate crime legislation. Plassey Law Review, 2, 52-66.
O’Donovan (2022) analyzes evidence-based approaches used to determine what groups are defined as “protected” under various hate crime statutes. The author explains the current issues with hate crime data and political opinions, along with calling for clearer, consistent guidelines for creating statutes and reporting. While the information within this study provides relevant themes in this policy brief, it is a student-run publication through the University of Limerick, not a peer-reviewed article in a scholarly journal.
Pezzella, F. S., Fetzer, M. D., & Keller, T. (2019). The dark figure of hate crime underreporting. American Behavioral Scientist, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764218823844
Pezzella et al. (2019) focus on the “dark figure” of underreporting hate crimes, expressing that those who are victims of hate crimes are less likely to report the victimization to the police than those who are victims of non-biased-motivated crimes. This study describes how misclassification of bias-motivated crimes and a lack of trust in law enforcement are the leading factors for lower hate crime reporting rates. This study has a strong correlation to the policy brief due to its focus on comparing UCR data with NCVS data over a period of time, providing a lot of information relating to the underreporting of hate crimes. It also mentions various drivers of underreporting, including the distrust of police, which also highly connects to the policy brief’s topic.
Powers, R. A., & Lantz, B. (2025). Special issue introduction: New research on hate crimes and violent extremism. Justice Quarterly, 42(6), 985-987.
https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2025.2507723
Powers and Lantz (2025) express that there has been a great increase in hate crimes and extremism over the years, and that the recent data does not appropriately reflect this issue. They state that more research needs to be conducted to understand why these crimes are occurring more often, how political and rhetorical factors play a role, and how to reduce the “normalization” of these negative beliefs in harming marginalized communities. Due to this article being a special issue introduction, there is not as much depth as there would normally be in a full empirical study; however, it does explain the current issue within the criminal justice system and how urgent it is to resolve.
Reed, B., & Strothers, Z. (2025). Hate crimes are on the rise in Connecticut. WFSB. https://www.wfsb.com/2025/06/27/hate-crimes-are-rise-connecticut/
This news article provides information on the increase in hate crimes in Connecticut from the previous year and how this has occurred in other states across the country. Reed and Strothers (2025) provide information on what the definition of a hate crime is, various reasons as to why there has been an increase in reporting in Connecticut, and how to accurately determine whether a crime is legally defined as a hate crime. Since this is a web article from one of Connecticut’s local news stations, it provides basic information describing the rate of crime reporting increase in the state. Most of this source’s value revolves around its specific example of a community-based, third-party program, but it is still limited to being information in one state and not being a scholarly article.
Stenersen, M. R., Thomas, K., & McKee, S. (2022). Police and transgender and gender diverse people in the United States: A brief note on interaction, harassment, and violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37(23-24), NP23528-NP23540.
Stenersen et al. (2022) used data from the United States Transgender Survey to receive data directly from transgender and gender diverse individuals who have had previous police interactions. Their data shows that verbal, physical, and sexual harassment occurs among many transgender and gender diverse people, especially those who are non-White and participate in sex work. Furthermore, the researchers state there needs to be more intervention and advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community and the hate they face from those within the criminal justice system. While this survey provides us with information from a sample that can be difficult to reach, self-report surveys can bring in the risk of bias. This survey also only focuses on transgender and gender diverse people, not factoring in the other individuals within the LGBTQ+ community, making it harder to generalize the findings.
Vergani, M., & Navarro, C. (2023). Hate crime reporting: The relationship between types of barriers and perceived severity. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 29, 111-126. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-021-09488-1
Vergani and Navarro (2023) discuss the various barriers to reporting hate crimes. With a group of 260 participants, the researchers determined the barriers lie within a lack of trust in the criminal justice system (particularly law enforcement), a lack of knowledge on how to report hate crimes, and accessibility to victim services. They expressed that further research on effective reporting and community-based services is required. Since this study was not conducted in the United States, this can cause some limitations on how the findings can properly transfer over due to differences in criminal justice and legal systems in Europe.
Walters, M. A., Paterson, J., Brown, R., & McDonnell, L. (2020). Hate crimes against trans people: Assessing emotions, behaviors, and attitudes toward criminal justice agencies. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 35(21-22), 4583-4613. https://doi.org/0.1177/0886260517715026
Walters et al. (2020) had 593 transgender individuals fill out a survey on their experiences relating to bias-motivated crimes. The data shows that over half of the participants reported multiple experiences, as well as feeling shame and frustration with the criminal justice system, especially law enforcement and Child Protective Services (CPS). A call for improved training for police and CPS workers, an increase in community-based engagement, and more. This study was conducted in the United Kingdom, bringing up the limitation of whether all the findings can appropriately be transferred to the United States and how the criminal justice agencies vary from each country.
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