Your pain is my pain: Examining the community impacts of Islamophobic hate crimes

Islamophobic hate crime continues to be a significant social problem throughout the United Kingdom. It is now well established that hate crimes can cause heightened levels of anger, fear and anxiety amongst those who are directly targeted. However, it has largely been assumed that such incidents have negative emotional and social impacts on other members of the victim’s community. Using a large scale survey, this chapter will provide the first quantitative examination of the indirect (community) impacts of hate crimes on members of UK Muslim communities. The study found that simply knowing a victim of an Islamophobic hate crime can have emotional and behavioural effects that are comparable with those who have experienced direct forms of victimisation. This indirect experience was found to increase other group members’ perceptions of threat and their feelings of anger and anxiety. In addition, they were more likely to report avoidant and security-related behavioural intentions and hold negative attitudes towards the Government and certain criminal justice agencies. However, not all impacts were intrinsically negative to community wellbeing. Indirect victimisation was also found to have a mobilising effect on Muslim communities, with many individuals likely to experience enhanced ties to their community and a strengthening of their Muslim identity.