Decmeber Hate Crime Report

A 2005 study conducted by National Institute of Justice, found that the Federal Government and all but one state, Wyoming, have laws related to hate crimes. A consistent problem identified by this study is there in no consistency in defining what constitutes a hate crime. (Carrie F. Mulford, Ph.D., & Michael Shively, Ph.D., Hate Crime in America: The Debate Continues, 257, Nat’l Inst Just., (2007). “The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines hate crime—also called bias crime—as “a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.” ld.

Transition to Lord of the Flies as a means to visualize the Pyramid of Hate

The United States FBI defines hate crimes as “a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias.” This type of bigotry-driven crime has been a huge issue in the area of politics and justice ever since history began. Such crimes have become increasingly visible over the years due to the advances in technology, and social networking sites that have given a new platform to these issues. As the visibility of hate crime conditions become commonplace, they also become easily identifiable in everyday life. The issue that then arises is that these conditions have not yet become illegal to the degree that they should be held to. Hate crimes should be held at a higher penalty, at the federal level, due to the nature and intent of the crime at hand.

Federal hate crime legislation, is targeted at the punishment of hate crimes and heightens the punishment of the underlying crime or creates a new substantive crime, if the offender is motivated by certain prejudices, such as racism. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, created a federal criminal law criminalizing hate crimes. This piece of federal legislation is the focus of this paper and its proposed amendment.

Hate crimes are many different criminal acts such as vandalism, arson, assault, and even murder. Many hate crimes are based on an individual’s race, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and disabilities. Everyone can be potential victims of hate crimes. Anyone from any social class can be considered targets for hate crimes. If you or a group believes in a different religion or speaks a different language and the offenders do not approve, then they will target you. No one can be really safe and overcome hate crimes if they are being targeted. It is a cruel and depressing world. With help as a community can stop hate crimes.

Throughout the country the people have seen a variety of problems with the justice system and how nothing is being done to fix the problems. For instance,The amount of hate crimes against foreign U.S citizens is at an all time high, there are too many innocent minorities are being killed by law enforcement, and the level of police abuse is at a record high. These crimes are causing major problems for the society and its people. The problems that have occurred within the crime and justice system are intolerable and the democrats are going to help by attempting to fix these problems to the best of their ability.

In the state of North Carolina the rate of hate crimes have increased by 15% from 2014 to 2015. (FBI Report) Hate crimes are caused by ignorant people because of someone else’s skin color,religion,gender, and even just because they do not approve of interracial relationships. (What Is A Hate Crime?)

The attacks on US soil on September 11th of the year 2001 caused an impact on the US. Most importantly its citizens. From safety concerns to the economy the impacts were all over the nation. One of these outcomes was racial profiling. This meant to people that looked to be from Saudi Arabia to suffer a form of hatred. Since that day many people have a picture ingrained in their heads about what a terrorist looks like. However, as an organization debates racial profiling is not effective in finding terrorists instead a waste of time.

In 2009, the Hate Crimes Statistics Act was amended by the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This amendment provides funding to help different levels of jurisdiction better investigate and prosecute hate crimes. Additionally, this amendment expanded the protections of hate crimes to include disability, gender identity, sexuality, and gender. This Act was brought about following the deaths of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr., who were both victims of brutal hate crimes.

It might face an uphill battle to be seen, because it revisits a crime that sparked national reckoning with the reality of homophobia, and that eventually led to the creation of The Matthew Shepard Foundation and the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. I hope people discover it. It is wrenching but never exploitive. It is impressively skeptical of the same mission that it takes on its shoulders: to make something positive from a senseless crime without diminishing its senselessness.

There are four types of hate crime offenders according to McDevitt and colleagues: thrill seeking, defensive, retaliatory, and mission. Thrill-seeking hate crime offenders are inspired by excitement and make up most of the cases in the study, representing 66% of the cases (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2013, p. 494). These offenders are typically subjugated by teenagers, who generally conduct their crimes when they are looking for fun and have spent time together drinking (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2013, p. 494). Thrill-seeking hate crime offenders tend to attack minority communities and normally use their hands or feet to go through with the attack (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2013, p. 494). Next, defensive hate crimes represent 25 % of hate crimes committed and are led by individuals who only see the world as being one way, nonetheless wanting to defend their neighborhood from anyone who would be considered an outsider (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2013, p.

Hate violence refers to crimes that are directed against families, persons, organizations, or groups due to their ethnic, racial, sexual, religious identities, orientations or conditions of disability (Whitlock & Bronski, 2016). Accordingly, hate violence included crimes of arson at the business or homes, damage and destruction of religious property, personal assaults, homicides, and cross burnings. In the United States, hate violence has a long history. However, although it might be challenging to assess and estimate the prevalence of this kind of hate in the United States, there are clear indications that the problem has increased in recent years (Whitlock & Bronski, 2016). Connectively,

problem in today's society, but it is not dealt with the same violent manner as

Throughout American history, violent criminal acts against a specific person or a group of individuals were just that, violent crimes. In the 1980’s, the term hate crime was born. The term hate crime was used by a group of advocates to describe a series of violent incidents targeting several minorities (Nij.gov, 2015). A hate crime is “a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender 's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation,

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,