A hate crime is an offense just like arson or murder, but with an aspect of business. The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines hate crimes as criminal offenses perpetrated against an institution, person or property and motivated by an aspect of business by the offender either in whole or part against a race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability (Humphrey, Schmalleger, 2012). They, however, do not treat hate itself as a crime because they are mindful of protecting people’s freedom of speech. The Los Angeles county district Attorney defines hate crime as a criminal or attempted criminal act perpetrated against individuals or group of individuals due to their perceived or actual color, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry or disability. This essay wishes to explore the different types of hate crimes and give reasons
...why they should be punished more severely than other types of crimes motivated by passion, anger and greed.
Hate crime is deemed illegal when it is motivated by prejudice or bias towards an individual due to perceived affiliations to certain groups and is intended to cause fear, terrify, scare or cause other psychological harm (Altschiller, 2015). There are different types of hate crime among them race-based, religious, transphobic and homophobic, hate crime against the disabled and older people among others. Race-based crimes are the most common cases which occur because people feel that they are hated or resented because of their races.
Statistics from the Bureau of justice indicate that there have been between 200,000 to 300,000 hate crimes reported annually over the last 10 years (Altschiller, 2015). Over the years, several hate crimes have taken place in the United
States. David Kato a re-known homosexual rights activist and defender was beaten and hammered to death. In January 2009, a Hispanic man and several African Americans were harassed and physically attacked by three men for their support for Obama. In April 2010, a mentally-disabled man was branded a Swastika sign with a hot iron at the back of his head in Farmington by three men.
Although, the Bureau of Statistics studies show a decrease in the total number of hate crimes, the recent shooting in Charleston shows these types of criminal activities are not going anywhere and strict measures ought to be implemented to deal with them. According to me, perpetrators of these heinous acts should attract severe punishments just like those of other crimes. First, any person, society or legal system concurs with me that the worst crimes are those motivated by hatred and thus when passing a sentence, it is prudent to consider the motive behind such acts (Streissguth, 2009).
If someone commits murder, he or she should be given the same sentence of a murder. Giving lesser punishments to these crimes, sends a message that perpetrators can commit similar crimes and go unpunished. Secondly, some of these crimes are unprovoked and prejudiced (Streissguth, 2009). Perpetrators of unprovoked crimes are dangerous to the society and deserve special treatment. A person who targets other because of their race or religion poses an unusual character because they pose a serious threat to that particular group. Prejudiced crimes deserve severe punishments because of the wider damage they pose to the society.
Therefore, the only way people can be deterred from committing hate crimes is by giving more severe punishments
to perpetrators. Hate crimes if not well managed can drastically destabilize a country because it can cause these groups that feel persecuted to retaliate increasing the potential of crimes.
References
- Altschiller, D. (2015). Hate crimes: A reference handbook.
- Humphrey, J. A., & Schmalleger, F. (2012). Deviant behavior. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
- Streissguth, T. (2009). Hate crimes. New York: Facts On File.
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