A Common Target: Anti-Jewish Hate Crime in New York City Communities, 1995-2010

Abstract

Objectives: There is a growing body of macro-level studies examining hate crime. These studies however largely focus on ethnoracial hate crime, leading to a relative dearth of research investigating the etiology of anti-Jewish hate crime. The current study seeks to fill this gap by conducting a community-level analysis of anti-Jewish hate crime in New York City. Methods: Using data from the New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force, the current study employs a series of negative binomial regressions to investigate the impact of defended neighborhoods, social disorganization, and strain variables on anti-Jewish hate crime. Results: The results show that defended neighborhoods consistently predict higher levels of anti-Jewish hate crime in White, Black, and non-White neighborhoods even when accounting for social disorganization and strain variables. Results also demonstrate that anti-Jewish crime occurs in communities that are more socially organized and with better economic conditions. Conclusions: This study’s findings reveal Jewish victims to be a catchall target when a minority group increasingly moves into a majority area. These defended neighborhoods, and other findings have intriguing implications for both criminology’s social disorganization theory and the police and others charged with combatting bias crimes.