Psychological Effects of Hate Crime – Individual Experience and Impact on Community
The research paper “Psychological effects of hate crime – individual experience or community response” by Dr. Inta Dzelme aims at highlighting the impact of experiences of hate crime on victims, their families and their communities in Latvia. The paper briefly reviews some literature concerning the psychological impact of hate crimes on victims and vulnerable groups, and then goes on to highlight the main themes emerging from interviews conducted with victims of hate crimes, who are representatives of visible minorities, LGBT people as well as Roma, who are a traditional minority in Latvia.
This paper was planned in order to contribute to this growing body of literature with an example of qualitative research, albeit modest, from a country where such research had not yet been done on this theme, but primarily in order to produce more effective arguments for the local audience of why specific responses to hate crime are needed, and why these crimes should receive priority attention, even if the recorded number of such crimes still remains low.
The paper has been published within the framework This report has been published within the framework of the LCHR project “Combating hate crime in Latvia and the Czech Republic: legislation, police practice and the role of NGOs”, financed by the European Commission through programme “2005 Actions in support of civil society in the Member States which acceded to the European Union on 1st May 2004”.
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Published: 2008-12-15