Violence and hate crimes

Further information: Hate crime

Four categories associated with hate groups' propensity for violence are: organizational capacity, organizational constituency, strategic connectivity, and structural arrangement.^[9] The larger an extremist group is and the longer it has existed, the more prone the group is to engage in violence. Regionally, hate groups based in the West and Northeast are more likely to engage in violence than those based in the South. If a group has a charismatic leader, it is more likely to be violent. Groups that share a conflict-based relationship with another group are more likely to engage in extreme violence. The amount of ideological literature a group publishes is linked to significant decreases in a group's violent behavior, with more literature linked to lower levels of violence.

Violent hate groups tend to commit "downward crimes," which involve the persecution of a minority group by a more powerful majority.^[10] By contrast, acts of terrorism are typically "upward crimes," with a low-power minority perpetrator targeting a more prominent majority group. There is no evidence suggesting that hate crimes precede terrorism; in fact, hate crimes tend to take place as retaliation following terrorist attacks, especially when the attack was on a core piece of American identity or ideology.

The California Association for Human Relations Organizations (CAHRO) asserts that hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and White Aryan Resistance (WAR) preach violence against racial, religious, sexual and other minorities in the United States.^[11] Joseph E. Agne argues that hate-motivated violence is a result of the successes of the civil rights movement, and he asserts that the KKK has resurfaced and that new hate groups have formed.^[12] Agne argues that it is a mistake to underestimate the strength of the hate-violence movement, its apologists and its silent partners.^[13]

In the US, crimes that "manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, including the crimes of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter; forcible rape; robbery; aggravated assault; burglary; larceny-theft; motor vehicle theft; arson; simple assault; intimidation; and destruction, damage or vandalism of property", directed at the government, an individual, a business, or institution, involving hate groups and hate crimes, may be investigated as acts of domestic terrorism.^{[14][15][16][17]}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_group