Hate crimes are motivated by prejudice, not necessarily by hatred itself.

Evidence

Chakraborti and Garland (2009: 4) make the case that ‘in reality crimes do not need to be motivated by hatred at all’. Similarly, Hall (2013: 9) states that ‘Hate crime isn’t really about hate, but about criminal behaviour motivated by prejudice, of which hate is just one small and extreme part’, which does raise important questions about rethinking what hate crime actually means. — Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, Islamophobia, 45

Categorization

• QUESTION: If hatred isn’t the trigger, what is the operational threshold — prejudice alone, or prejudice plus targeting? Legal definitions may be doing different work than the concept.