Religion and Hate Crime Victimisation: A Representative Study of Young People in Finland

Abstract

Key societal macro-trends, such as immigration and the increasing salience of post-secular and identity-based religiosity, are converging to increase the relevance of religion in everyday life. Such developments call for a reassessment of the religion–victimisation link. We analyse the prevalence and severity patterns of hate victimisation in different groups defined by religion and explore the links between routine activities and lifestyle factors in hate crime victimisation. Our research site, Finland, is a country with a long history of religious homogeneity, recently interrupted by religious pluralisation. We draw on the 2020 sweep of the Finnish Self-Report Delinquency Study (FSRD), a nationally representative crime survey targeting 15–16-year-olds ( N = 5482). We found that religiously unaffiliated and Muslim youths have an above-average risk of hate crime victimisation. There were some indications that the patterns of victimisation are different across religious denominations. For instance, Muslim youths were more likely to be attacked by adults. Hate crime victimisation risk was not mediated by routines and lifestyles. Independent of religion, there was, however, a strong and direct positive association between hate victimisation and a risky lifestyle, i.e. substance use and interaction with delinquent peers. Comparing the findings with assault victimisation, we observed that the results are largely specific to hate crime offending rather than assault victimisation in general. We discuss the findings from the perspective of criminological theory, future research needs, and policy implications.