The seven-stage hate model: the psychopathology of hate groups

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, March, 2003 by John R. Schafer, Joe Navarro

The manifestations of hate are legion, but the hate process itself remains elusive. Limited research in this field precluded the development of a comprehensive hate model. Understanding hate groups is essential for the development and implementation of successful intervention strategies, which depend on an understanding of the hate process. The proposed hate model consists of seven stages, including how hate groups define themselves, how hate groups target their victims and taunt them with verbal insults and offensive gestures, and how hate groups attack their victims with or without weapons. (1)

DEFINITION OF HATE

Hate, a complex subject, divides into two general categories: rational and irrational. Unjust acts inspire rational hate. Hatred of a person based on race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or national origin constitutes irrational hate.

Both rational and irrational hate mask personal insecurities. Everyone experiences personal insecurities in varying degrees throughout their lives. The more insecure a person feels, the larger the hate mask. Most people concentrate on the important issues in life, such as earning a living, rearing a family, and achieving personal goals. These pursuits give meaning and value to life. (2) Nonetheless, irrational hate bleeds through day-to-day activities in the form of racial barbs and ethnic humor. Not all insecure people are haters, but all haters are insecure people.

With respect to rational hate, haters do not focus as much on the wrong done to them or others, but, rather, on their own helplessness, guilt, or inability to effect change. The object of rational hate often is despised or pitied. (3) In the same way, irrational hate elevates the hater above the hated. (4) Many insecure people feel a sense of self-worth by relegating a person or group of people to a lower status. (5)

SKINHEAD GROUPS

During a 7-year FBI investigation of skinhead groups in Southern California between 1992 and 1999, specific patterns emerged. Skinhead groups typically consist of uneducated, young, white males between the ages of 13 and 24 who have no long-term prospects for success. Although many come from single-parent, dysfunctional families, some exceptions exist. For example, members of the Western Hammerskins in Hemet, California, had high school educations and came from two-parent, middle-class families. Further examination revealed that both parents made long, daily commutes to work in Los Angeles and left their teenage children unsupervised. The lack of parental supervision and guidance spawned personal insecurities similar to those found in skinheads who come from dysfunctional, single-parent environments.

Fortunately, most skinhead groups are not well organized and lack the leadership structure found in the majority of street gangs engaged in "for-profit" criminal activities. However, the Western Hammerskins group has a stronger leadership hierarchy than most skinhead groups, and it boasts a very active recruitment program. Potential members receive a recruitment package, which includes a swastika armband, a T-shirt with white supremacist slogans, white supremacist literature and band stickers, and other supremacist materials. Recruiters also pass out business cards embossed with the Western Hammerskins' logo and the recruiter's name and telephone number. The group's higher educational level may explain the sophistication of its recruitment techniques.

Skinhead groups subdivide into two categories: criminally motivated and hate motivated. Criminally motivated skinhead groups spend most of their time engaged in for-profit criminal activities, such as drug sales and burglaries. Incidental to their criminal activity, they commit hate crimes. The San Fernando Valley Peckerwoods (SVP) in California was a criminally motivated skinhead group. SVP members primarily sold meth-amphetamines and committed residential burglaries. Periodically, SVP members attacked minorities with weapons and, on one occasion, placed packages resembling bombs near an apartment complex where African-Americans lived. Members intended for the fake bombs to frighten current residents to relocate and to discourage other African-American families from moving into the complex.

Conversely, hate-motivated skinhead groups dedicate the majority of their time to hate crimes. (6) Incidental to hate crimes, these hard-core skinheads commit petty thefts or sell small amounts of narcotics to support daily needs, such as food, cigarettes, and alcohol and other drugs. The Nazi Low Riders (NLR) skinhead group located in Lancaster, California, exemplifies a hate-motivated skinhead group. At one time, NLR members spent their time prowling the streets of Lancaster looking for minorities to attack. The NLR matured to the point where their members routinely beat and stabbed minorities, and, in one instance, murdered an African-American.

Haters cannot stop hating without exposing their personal insecurities. For example, at the onset of the FBI investigation, FBI authorities told hard-core members of the NLR that they would arrest them if their hate violence continued; yet, the hate violence persisted. The FBI similarly warned the members of the SVP who, however, stopped or were more surreptitious concerning criminal activities, and their hate violence ceased. The reaction of the SVP members comported with general criminal deterrence literature. (7) The reaction of the NLR members did not, however, because hate, not criminal acts, was their primary motive.