Hate Crime Research: Design and Measurement Strategies for Improving Causal Inference

The credibility revolution in the social sciences has placed new emphasis on research designs that provide strong evidence of cause and effect. The next generation of hate crime research must move in this design-based direction. This essay reviews recent examples of experiments and quasi-experiments in criminology, political science, and economics that provide useful design templates for hate crime researchers. At the same time, we caution that advances in design must also be accompanied by advances in measurement if researchers are to gauge the long-term effects of interventions designed to reduce the risk of hate crime.