Un)confirmed racist offences. A sociological perspective on the judicial treatment of racist hate crimes in three criminal courts

This article examines the judicial treatment of offences of racial aggression and the phenomenon of attrition, through an investigation based on the case files of 500 racial hate crimes processed between 2006 and 2015 in three criminal courts in France. It shows that a combination of factors produce a high rate of case dismissal for unconfirmed racist offences, based on a hierarchy of infractions and types of racism, the differential treatment of victims and defendants (according to age, sex, social class, ethnicity, etc.), and the paradoxical over-representation of minorities among the suspects. Despite the legal and institutional differences between France and the United States, both countries draw on relatively similar forms of administrative and social comprehension.