Project Synopsis

Title: Religion and Hate Victimization among Youth: Contexts, Consequences and Adaptive Strategies

Religion remains a source of meaning for billions of people in today’s world. For many, religion is a crucial part of their identity, which sets the guidelines for their way of living, form of communicating, their dress code and behaviour. Being a member of a religious group can be a source of protection as well as a source of risk, depending on the level of prejudices against the group. The connection of religion to youth crime victimisation therefore addresses the need to study the matter. This project examines how religious affiliation and beliefs are linked to crime victimisation among young people while focusing on victimisation risks in different places, national/international contexts, as well as online/ offline spheres. The possible consequences of religion-based victimisation in terms of revenge will be also examined. Additionally, it will be explored how religious youth navigate in social environments, including the social media, to avoid risky situations, hate-based attacks, and crime victimisation. The role of externally visible cues in triggering hate-motivated attacks against religious identities will be studied as well. Furthermore, the impacts of the religious neighbourhood on religious-based youth victimisation as well as religious disaffiliation as a possible risk factor will be explored. 

early stage researcher

ESR12 Sophie Litvak, PhD Candidate at University of Helsinki

supervisor(s)

Prof. Janne Kivivuori, University of Helsinki, criminology, homicide, youth crime, methodology of crime surveys

Output

SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

Litvak, S., Kivivuori, J., & Kaakinen, M. (2024). Preventing Religion-Based Hate Crime Victimization Among Youth: A Systematic Review of Personal, Collective, and Policy Responses. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380241257198. Open access:  https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/core/bitstreams/c00498dd-d54e-464c-a49e-7ffde9054ee1/content

Litvak, S., Kivivuori, J., & Kaakinen, M. (2023). Religion and Hate Crime Victimisation: A Representative Study of Young People in Finland. International Criminology 2023, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/S43576-022-00079-6. Open access: https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/core/bitstreams/0d34ff3d-e554-44ea-8eee-e0c2f00de9bf/content

Litvak, S., Kivivuori, J., & Kaakinen, M. (2023). Towards a Religion–Victimization Module for the International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD) Context: Learning from Prior Exemplars. Kriminologijos studijos, 11, 51-79. https://doi.org/10.15388/CrimLithuan.2022.10.6. Open access: https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/core/bitstreams/8223f03c-b1d1-4b29-afae-17dcfa90bddc/content

ACADEMIC CONFERENCES

Litvak, S. (2024, July 10-12) Stockholm symposium (poster presentation): Silent witnesses: Unravelling the threads of religiously motivated hate crime through a factorial survey. A poster presentation at The Stockholm Criminology Symposium, Stockholm, Sweden. 

Litvak, S. (2024, May 29) INAS: A cry for help: A factorial survey on witnessing religiously motivated hate crime. A presentation at the Annual Conference of the International Network of Analytical Sociology, Leipzig, Germany.

Litvak, S. (2023, September 9) Eurocrim: Effective countermeasures for reducing hate crimes against religious youth: A systematic review. A presentation at the Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, Florence, Italy.

EU CORDIS REPORT

Litvak, S., Kivivuori, J. & Kaakinen, M. (2024).  Survey module to study victimisation-religion link: working paper. CORDIS EU – research results. link