The Cause Of Hate Crime In The United States

2079 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on why do hate crimes occur

In the U.S. there are many crimes that have been established over thousands of years. Crime has been an ongoing battle that psychologists have tried to determine the cause and effect of why these crimes keep occurring. The crime that I decided to state my opinion and do my research paper on was hate crimes. Hate crimes in my opinion is a huge crime problem here in the United States. Hate crime has been a problem in my opinion since the civil right ages. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation the definition of a hate crime is” a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. For the purposes of collecting statistics, Congress has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or …show more content…

One of the biggest challenges in my opinion was having the support of congress passing legislation to protect, giving awareness, and educating the nation on hate crimes. On February 22, 1989 Congress had reintroduced the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. This Act required the Department of Justice to collect and publish data about crimes motivated by hatred based on race, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation (Human Right Campaign). This was the first step that was taking in this long journey. On November 4, 1993, The Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act was added as an amendment to the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which stated that "A crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability or sexual orientation of any person."(Basic …show more content…

Showing bias to a certain group in our society should not be how we express our differences of another community. We should not be hated because the color of our skins, our sexual orientation, or the religion that we chose to believe in. I know it is hard to accept that things are changing in American today but we must adapt to the change and not live with such hate in our hearts. Having the proper prevention strategies intact will help these crimes decrease each year. Educating everyone on the topic of hate crimes will give everyone a sense of understanding of the severeness of is crime and the consequences giving when this crime is

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of What's So Bad About Hate By Andrew Sullivan

    1168 Words  | 3 Pages

    The punishment of a crime should not be determined by the motivation for the crime, yet that is exactly what hate crime legislation does. It places emphasis on a crime for the wrong reasons. Hate crimes victimize more than just the victims, and this is why the punishments are more severe, but Sullivan argues that any crime victimizes more than the victims. He suggests that random crimes with no prejudice in place can be perceived as something even more frightening, as the entire community feels threatened instead of just a group. Proven in Sullivan’s article is the worthlessness of the “hate” label. I would agree that it only serves to further discriminate, instead of achieving the peace and equality that it pretends to stand

    Read More

  • Stereotyping in The Way We Lie by Stephanie Ericsson

    950 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ypes. These crimes are called “hate crimes”, and are directed towards a particular individual not because of something he or she has done, but simply because of the group they belong to.

    Read More

  • Hate Crimes Should NOT be Punished Differently than Other Crimes

    787 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hate crimes should not be punished differently than other crimes. The actual crime should be punished, not the reasoning behind it. The idea of punishing crimes differently based on victims might make some people or groups feel that others are more protected or valued than they are. The concept of punishing crimes differently because of motive is senseless, unnecessary, and an injustice.

    Read More

  • Hate Crimes in Canada

    776 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Petrosino (2003: 10) hate crimes can be defined as "..the victimisation of minorities due to their racial or ethnic identity by members of the majority. " (p. 4) Hate crimes are also known as bias-motivated crimes because the crimes are motivated by a bias towards a person or persons including but not limited to those of a different gender, ethnic background, religion, or sexual orientation. Hate crimes are quite serious and have severe and long lasting-effects for the targeted victims. Due to the severe nature of the crimes many countries have strict laws in place to punish offenders. Hate crime is not widely discussed in Canadian society because it has not been a prominent issue until now. “..The extent of the problem in Canada was limited to a small number of persons, such activity could create a climate of malice and destructiveness to the values of our society (Cohen Report, 1966:24). As a result of the committee’s efforts, Parliament amended the Criminal Code in 1970, thus rendering hate propaganda as a punishable offence (Law Reform Commission of Canada, 1986:7)

    Read More

  • Discrimination of Minorities in America

    928 Words  | 2 Pages

    The fact that hate crimes still occur in America is another signpost that tolerance is still an unheard of notion to a lot of people. In 2007 the Federal Bureau of Investigation released statistics showing that 2,105 law enforcement agencies reported 9,080 offences of hate crime. This includes vandalism, intimidation, simple and aggravated assault, and murder. This also includes not only race statistics, but religious, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and disability motivated crimes. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released statistics of discrimination charges for the same year with all ...

    Read More

  • Against Hate Speech

    719 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hate crimes are done too frequently in the United States. Although we have laws that supposedly regulate them, many people still feel the need to commit acts of violence on people that are different than them. Many of these crimes originate with some sort of hate speech. People get ideas from other people, passed down from previous generations.

    Read More

  • Profile of a Hate Crime Offender

    1606 Words  | 4 Pages

    The term hate crime first appeared in the late 1980’s as a way of understanding a racial incident in the Howard Beach section of New York City, in which a black man was killed while attempting to evade a violent mob of white teenagers, shouting racial epithets. Although widely used by the federal government of the United States, the media, and researchers in the field, the term is somewhat misleading because it suggests incorrectly that hatred is invariably a distinguishing characteristic of this type of crime. While it is true that many hate crimes involve intense animosity toward the victim, many others do not. Conversely, many crimes involving hatred between the offender and the victim are not ‘hate crimes’ in the sense intended here. For example an assault that arises out of a dispute between two white, male co-workers who compete for a promotion might involve intense hatred, even though it is not based on any racial or religious differences... ...

    Read More

  • Hate Groups in the United States

    1148 Words  | 3 Pages

    Right now, there are many active hate groups in the United States such as the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi, Skinheads, Christian identity, Black Separatists, etc. These hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, which is one of America’s oldest and more feared, use violence and move above the law to promote their different causes. Another example is a group called Christian Identity, who describes a religion that is fundamentally racist and anti-Semitic; and other are the Black Separatist groups, who are organizations whose ideologies include tenets of racially based hatred. Because of the information gathered by the Intelligence Project from hate groups’ publications, citizen’s reports, law enforcement agencies, field sources and news reports, many people know about these hate groups. Many people know how these groups act and think and most of the American people agree that these hate groups are immoral and should not be allowed to exist neither in the United States nor on the rest of the world.

    Read More

  • The Problems with Hate Crime Legislation

    1649 Words  | 4 Pages

    In conclusion, Heidi Hurd did a passable job in explaining both parts of the discussion. Based on her article I have come to the conclusion that this is a topic not easily solved. With every argument that the people in favor of hate crime legislation those against are able to oppose it with their own. It is simple not possible to generalize case because although they may be similar they are never the same. Discrimination, hate, and prejudice has always been and will continue to be a topic discussed for many years.

    Read More

  • Race, Ethnicity, and Hate Crimes

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    A hate crime is a crime, usually involving violence or intimidation committed against others based partially or entirely on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation or membership in another social group.

    Read More

  • Extra Penalties for Hate Crimes are Justified

    1101 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are both state and federal laws that prohibit hate crimes, but proving an assailant committed a crime in prejudice is very difficult. Any type of crime can call for some form of punishment, from fines and short prison stays for misdemeanors to long term imprisonment for felonies. Once it has been reviled that an accused willfully committed an offense, proof must be given that indicates the crime was influenced by prejudice against a specific characteristic in order to show that it was also a hate crime. When this can be proven, the harshness of the crime automatically increases. People often wonder why hate crime punishment is harsher than for crimes that are not motivated by any type of bias. The basic reason for this is that most crimes are directed at an individual, but hate crimes are against an entire community. A burglar who breaks into a random home does so for personal gain, and usually doesn’t even know who lives in the home they are invading. Conversely, a person who chooses a victim based on a particular bias is singling out a ch...

    Read More

  • Hate Crimes

    1799 Words  | 4 Pages

    Hate crimes are not a new concept for society, because hate crimes have always been around. While the study of hate crimes and the laws that have been passed because of hate crimes is relatively new, hate crimes have always been around. Hate crimes were committed as far back as the 1800’s and even back to The Civil War. Hate crimes are prevalent in society today just like they were in the past; because whether the crimes are aimed towards Muslims, the gay community, or any other minority group; they are fueled by something that every person has come into contact with- prejudice. Prejudice is defined as a preconceived thought or opinion about someone. While prejudice can be positive, in the concept of hate crimes they are negative feelings, thoughts, or opinions that are aimed towards a certain religious, ethnic, race, or even sexual orientation group. The typical definition of hate crime is that a crime has been committed by a majority member against a minority member simply because the victim was a minority. However, as of recent the definition has been expanded to allow for any crime committed by bias towards the victim’s social group such as anti-gay or anti-lesbian. Hate crimes are an extreme, potential effect due to prejudice and discrimination towards someone based on ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. These crimes are committed against an individual or a group of individuals based solely on the fact that they are part of a group that the offender doesn’t approve of whether it is because they are a different race or following an alternative lifestyle. While the hate crimes are not something that is new in society because prejudice has always been around, the concept of a bias-crime and the legal precedent that it ha...

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Hate Crimes

    606 Words  | 2 Pages

    Racial bias is the Hate crime is still being committed today and many believe that it would benefit victims and communities if hate crimes were punished more severely. However, hate crimes should not be punished more severely than other crimes that are motivated for other reasons; although the motivation (personal belief) and violence that constitute a hate crime are horrendous, criminals should be prosecuted for their wrongdoing, not for their beliefs. The idea that criminals should be punished more severely than crimes that are motivated by greed, anger, or revenge is not acceptable. The potential motivations that were just given can constitute several crimes, like, murder.

    Read More

  • Hate Crime in the United States of America

    1682 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...ith these differencesAs Barbara McQuade said, “A hate crime is different than a simple assault because it is an attack on not just one individual victim, but an attack on everyone who shares a particular characteristic.”As presented in this paper, hate crime isn’t new but isn’t talked about too much either. These crimes are not taken as serious as they should be. Attention was brought to what hate crime is, who commits them, at what ages they are being committed, how often they occur, which states have the most and which people are targeted the most. Hate crimes are done every day and it isn’t taken seriously. It can happen to anyone in this country at any time. After reading this paper there should be enough information gathered to try and avoid these crimes. It is also shown that participating to try and put an end to these crimes would be very helpful to society.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Speech: We Must Take a Stand Against Hate Crimes

    1738 Words  | 4 Pages

    Someone commits a hate crime every hour. In the most recent data collection, 2014, a reported 17, 876 hate crimes were committed. This is a national crisis that we cannot allow to continue.

    Read More

More about The Cause Of Hate Crime In The United States

Open Document