An Assessment of Geographically Mediated Racial Threat and Racially Motivated Hate Crime: A County-Level Analysis

Racial demographic changes can influence racially motivated crime rates, often explained by group threat theories. These theories suggest that dominant groups may exhibit antagonistic behaviors towards minorities when perceived as threats to resources like political, economic, or social goods. This threat is usually measured by the proportion of minorities relative to white residents, but recent studies of racial threat in relation to legal mobilization have expanded to consider larger ecological units beyond local areas, emphasizing the role of geographically mediated racial threat. Using hate crime data from the UCR, this study finds limited evidence for a top-down spatial transmission of racial threat. Instead, it suggests that racially motivated hate crime is prevalent in white-dominated areas within larger white locales, driven by geographically reinforced power differentials.