The problem behind rising rates of hate crimes has created a very controversial subject. Rising rates has brought to our attention the dangerous problems we as a society could potentially face. Over the course of the last couple years hate crimes have created a devastating impact on families and communities, but also because groups that preach hatred and intolerance could plant the seed of terrorism here in our country.
Trans activists should focus our resources and attention on winning inclusion, legal equality frameworks such as, antidiscrimination laws and hate crime laws that will provide relief from the life-shortening conditions trans populations are facing. While crime is a problem already, what is even worse is that hate crimes are creating multiple grim cases the bureau becomes responsible for. The Bureau investigates hundreds of these cases every year and works to detect and determine further incidents through law enforcement training, public outreach, and partnerships with a myriad of community groups.
Hate crimes are crimes motivated by racial, sexual, or other prejudice. I not only wanted to research hate crimes in one place, but see how hate crimes compare in my home state which is Colorado, to an outside state where we hear hate crimes are more frequent. As I researched this topic determined that it is something that has become a huge problem in our society today. This topic interests me greatly and goes hand in hand with my major which is Criminal Justice. However what sparks my concentration the most about this topic is how the news is plagued with these types of crimes since the past years.
This issue matters to others to a great extent because it is the world we live in, and what we have to deal with everyday. “The FBI has classified hate crimes as the highest priority of their Civil Rights program. Hate crimes have been reported to impact the United States by devastating families, and also causing to plant a seed of terrorism in our country. ” (Hate Crimes) Everything was different before 2009 when hate crimes were treated and worked with differently than, “with the passage of Matthew Sheppard and James Byrd, Jr. , Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. After this act the FBI was allowed to investigate this crimes with no prohibition in being biased against the victim’s race, color, religion, or national origin. Hate crimes have been becoming more of an issue throughout the years. In 2014 the highest victim by bias motivation is by being targeted because of the offenders bias against race. The highest racial bias were motivated by the offenders’ anti black or African American bias. (Crime Data) Profiling is the representation or image of someone based on what is already known.
For example, hate crimes have a typical profiling for offenders as usually being young white males who commit assaults and intimidation against another race, or a different group of people. As stated in the journal I read, this is truly not the case for hate crime offenders. Offenders appear to be those who are socially isolated, have low self esteem, and they want to belong to a group. Typically they will try to get accepted no matter what it takes. This journal makes it clear that hate crime offenders has nothing to do with race, but with social fitting. Another topic (in this journal) is the prevention of hate crimes.
Prevention of hate crimes is mainly ran by community wide commitment to spread awareness of this subject and to come up with effective prevention plans to either reduce or eliminate hate. It is blamed that American government has help co-author a negative past and promoted racial segregation. Having more accurate data for hate crimes, giving education about different diversity, and racial tolerance – will all help prevent and maybe eliminated hate crimes. (James F. Anderson) In 2014, there were fifteen thousand four hundred and fortynine law enforcement agencies that had participated in the Hate Crime Statistics Program.
Of these agencies, one thousand six hundred and sixty-six agencies reported 5,479 hate crime incidents. Within those hate crimes they involved a total of 6,418 offenses. In addition to those hate crime another agency reports 5,462 single-bias incidents. Those of which involved 6,385 offenses, 6,681 victims, and 5,176 known offenders. There were seventeen multiple-bias incidents reported in 2014. the multiple bias incidents that were reported involved thirty-three offenses, forty-six victims, and sixteen offenders. (Crime Data) In 2014, the nation’s law enforcement agencies reported that there were 6,727 victims of hate crimes.
Of these victims, fortysix were victimized in seventeen separate multiple-bias incidents. In 2013, the national UCR Program began collecting revised race and ethnicity data in accordance with a directive from the U. S. Government’s Office of Management and Budget. The race categories were expanded from four to five-White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. The ethnicity categories changed from Hispanic and Non-Hispanic to Hispanic or Latino and Not Hispanic or Latinos.
Opposing views what do other people think? Hate crimes are committed evenly and not only because they are from a certain race. Every race commits hate crimes evenly. Now examples on why this is correct my idea is correct because In the article Racial Disparities in Hate Crime Reporting by Heather Zaykowski, she makes points involving hate crime reports, such as the following. There has been an increase in interest with hate crimes, but yet there is still not much information known about it.
The explanation to why there is not much information on it is because of the lack of reporting. ,000 hate crimes were reported to police in 2006, while other sources reported higher estimates than the UCR (Unified Carrier Registration) suggest. Recently the Bureau of Justice released that over 200,000 individuals are victims of hate crimes per year. Individuals should understand that if there was an increase in reporting it would acknowledged hate crimes as a legal offense. There is not much reporting in hate crimes because of many reasons, but one of the most popular reasons researched suggest that minorities are deficient in reporting because they lack confidence and trust in police.
They have been influenced by the portrayal of race relations through media. There is also less of a need d of police in minorities because of their negative attitudes towards them. It has been examined that whites have a more successful incrimination rate as they have more support and greater accesses to the law. These are the points Heather Zaykowski made in her article. (Zaykowski) In the article “Punishing Hate and Achieving Equality” by Adams, David M, he talks about how Hate crimes are dealt with.
When a hate crime is committed it is usually charged as bias motivated aggravated assault. There are crimes committed that are similar to one another, but the punishment is greater if the crime was committed with the idea of a bias motivation. There are a variety of laws that differ with each state. The majority of state statutes (and, on the federal side, the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act) define hate crimes as higher level versions of crimes and enforce higher penalties for hate crime violations.
Hate crimes are types of crimes done hatefully or prejudicially, and are ranked at a higher level of wrong doing, superior penalties are forced when the offender has targeted a victim because of or by reason of race, religion, sexual identity, or gender. Hence the punishment of Hate Crimes being treated more intensely than a regular assault there have been false testimonies. There are cases where the crime was committed by a bias motivation, but when the offender testifies they do not admit to it being bias to reduce sentencing. This has been a problem for some time now.
On the opposite side there has also been cases that have been charged incorrectly by charging offenders inaccurately with evidence of them being biased even when the offender did it without that intention. This article basically summed up the rest of the articles by telling me what is the punishment of committing a Hate Crime. (David) Although the data with Hate Crimes is not accurate even until this date I still believe that minorities have been victimized by a greater extent than other races.
There have always been problems with criminals. In society when it became against a race by racial, sexual, or other prejudice. t became the FBIs number one priority and a huge controversy with threats to our society. Hate crimes are an enormous interest in my life because it goes hand in hand with what I want to pursue my career in. Punishing a hate crime classifies as a different punishment than committing a regular crime. A hate crimes’ punishment is more extreme than if you were to commit the same crime, but without being prejudice, or bias. Our country needs to take action in reducing the rates of hate crimes. We need to make it aware that it is a problem here in the United States.
