Hate crimes1997

This book addresses a timely set of questions about the politics and dynamics of intergroup violence manifest as discrimination. It explores such issues as why injuries against some groups of people - Jews, people of color, gays and lesbians, and, on occasion, women, and those with disabilities - have increasingly captured notice, while similar acts of bias-motivated violence continue to go unnoticed? It also contributes to the discourse of criminology by considering how "legal mobilization" has brought about whole new categories of statutory criminal conduct. The authors offer empirically grounded, theoretically informed answers to a fundamental sociological question: How is social change on this order possible?