Collaborative Research: Religion-Related Bias Victimization: Addressing a Blind-Spot

William Marsh Rice University, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

Evidence suggests that crimes targeting individuals based on their religion are on the rise. This harms not only the well-being of victims, but also the well-being of their communities and the nation. Existing data assessing criminal victimization and bias-motivated crimes do not adequately measure the religion of victims or the role of religion in bias-motivated crimes. This project will provide new data by conducting a nationally representative survey of adults to assess their experiences with victimization and whether they perceived that religious bias was a motivator for their being victimized. This project will provide much-needed information to assist law enforcement, communities, and policy-makers in better preventing religion-related crimes and serving the victims of such crimes. The project will field a survey using a nationally representative sample of 1,000 US adults along with oversamples of several minority religious groups totaling 1,200 additional respondents. The survey instrument will utilize both original questions along with questions drawn from existing surveys. The instrument will measure individuals' experiences with criminal victimization with a specific interest in whether religion was perceived to be a motivator for the offender(s) and the impact of the experience on the victim. The project will augment the survey data by attaching indicators from the U. S. Census that reflect community characteristics such as racial composition and median household income. Use of the 2010 Religious Congregations and Membership Study will permit attaching data on the religious composition of respondent neighborhoods. The data generated from this survey will be analyzed using regression models predicting outcomes such as the risk of victimization, fears of victimization, and the impact and responses to victimization. Findings will inform theories in several sociological subfields including the sociology of religion, criminology and collective action. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.