Hate Crime Police Intervention and Neighborhood Context: A Multilevel Analysis

Prior studies document the complexity of hate crime determination by police. The likelihood of criminal justice intervention into cases of hate crime is influenced by several factors including the situational, officer, agency, and structural. While most work focuses on the hate crimes clearance via arrest and federal reporting compliance, there is limited attention on earlier points of police discretion in potential hate crime cases. To add, most scholarship has been focused on between-agency behavior while ignoring internal organizational processes that may influence hate crime police response. We employed a multilevel analysis of crime incidents from the Los Angeles Police Department to clarify the predictors of hate crime case funneling, focusing on the likelihood of official classification as well as police arrest. Our findings suggest some degree of neighborhood clustering and that police intervention into hate crime is constrained by a host of situational, organizational, and other environmental factors.