Student reactions to public safety reports of hate crimes.

ABSTRACT

This study investigated participant's reactions to hate crime versus nonbiased crime incident reports that included more or less detail about the crime using a 2 (victim race African American, unstated)×2 (amount of information vague, detailed) between-subjects factorial design. We hypothesized that participants would be more sympathetic, more distressed, and blame the victim less if the victim was African American (designating a hate crime) and if more detail was included in the incident report. The results generally showed greater psychological impact for a hate crime versus nonbiased crime and when more information was presented than with vague information, and these two manipulations did not interact in influencing participants' reactions. These results indicate that amount of detail provided about a crime should be considered when publishing incident reports.