American skinheads: The criminology and control of hate crime

Breaking Down the Language of Online Racism: A Comparison of the Psychological Dimensions of Communication in Racist, Anti‐Racist, and Non‐Activist Groups

“…In the past, they used written materials, radio broadcasts, and public television networks (Anti‐Defamation League, ). Unlike the attitudes and ideologies they promote, their approach to new technologies have been distinctively progressive as they have been long known as early adopters of Internet technology (Gerstenfeld, Grant, & Chiang, ; Hamm, ). Racist groups utilize a diverse array of virtual places, including social networking sites, chat rooms, discussion boards, and their own websites to express and spread their views and ideologies, sell promotion merchandise, and recruit new members (Douglas, McGarty, Bliuc, & Lala, ).…”

Alt‐right gangs and far‐right extremists: From the margins to the mainstream

“…Valasik and Reid's (2019: 1253) systematic comparison, across a range of official and self‐reported data, of racist skinhead youth to white, Black, and Latino gang members reveals that there is in fact substantial overlap in the risk factors and anti‐social behaviors observed, with “skinhead youth and their groups look quantitatively and qualitatively similar to youth in street gangs.” Furthermore, Valasik and Reid (2019) find that when racist skinheads discuss their criminal exploits, they never reported bias/hate violence in their list of offenses, but instead highlighted their participation in drug use, fighting, and stealing. This reinforces Sarnecki's (2001: 188) observation that racist skinheads “seem to participate in all kinds of offenses of which a small proportion may be motivated by politics or perhaps rather by hate.” Valasik and Reid (2019: 1255) assert that racist skinheads “are no more ‘fringe’ or exceptional than the average gang member” and insist that the more inclusive characterization of alt‐right gang is a much more appropriate designation than being characterized as a distinct terrorist youth subculture (see Blazak, 2022; Hamm, 1993). Valasik and Reid (2019) contend that the risk factors driving marginalized youth, perceived or actual, to join a street gang are analogous to those youth joining an alt‐right gang and by using a more inclusive categorization allows for a broader application of prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies.…”

“…As violence committed by alt‐right gangs, such as Proud Boys, Patriot Front, and Rise Above Movement, continues to plague local communities, it is necessary to “tell it like it is” and treat these groups not as some racist anomaly but as a particular type of street gang. Despite a desire to consider alt‐right gangs as just the next en vogue moral panic (Decker et al., 2022), an ephemeral youth subculture (Blazak, 2022; Hamm, 1993), or just a superficial concern to society (Zenn, 2022), history has demonstrated that far‐right groups, particularly alt‐right gangs are resilient, readily shifting between digital and physical mediums, and remain a public safety concern for the foreseeable future (see Reid et al., 2020; Simi & Futrell, 2006; Valasik & Reid, 2021c, 2021b, 2023).…”

“…Currently, there is an inflection point in how academia and the broader criminal justice apparatus understands and handles far‐right groups, specifically alt‐right gangs. Arguments are made that far‐right groups, including anti‐government “militias,” like Oath Keepers (see Jackson, 2020), accelerationists, like Boogaloo Bois (see Kriner & Lewis, 2021a), and alt‐right gangs, like Proud Boys (Reid & Valasik, 2020b), should be characterized as a distinct terrorist subculture (see Blazak, 2022; Hamm, 1993), however, the lack of domestic terrorism laws within the United States limits the efficacy of such a label (see Valasik & Reid, 2021c). Instead, using the lens of street gangs to observe, analyze, and construct policy provides an opportunity to take advantage of, not just for the extensive knowledge base but for the ability to adapt effective intervention and suppression approaches, to deal with far‐right groups as alt‐right gangs.…”

From Gaming to Hating: Extreme‐Right Ideological Indoctrination and Mobilization for Violence of Children on Online Gaming Platforms

“…For example, the founder and administrator of one of the most infamous English language neo‐Nazi commentary and messaging boards (“The Daily Stormer”), Andrew Anglin, openly admitted on a White supremacist radio show that he designed the webpage to target children as young as 11 years old, explaining his goal to “give this [ideology] to teenagers and even before teenagers” (as cited in Edison‐Hayden, 2018). Other youth‐specific recruitment and radicalization attempts include fashion (Miller‐Idriss, 2018), music (Hamm, 1993), graphic novels (Forchtner, 2021), and the initially mentioned use of online video gaming. The latter was highlighted by numerous institutions as a potential new threat of strategic far‐right recruitment.…”