Essay On Hate Crimes
Imagine walking down the street and someone threatens to kill you because they don’t like the fact you are different, look different or believe in different things. Disliking someone is one thing, but hating someone is another. Understanding that hate is a very powerful word, when someone hates something they tend to show their emotions by presenting multiple hate crimes or speeches. A hate crime is a crime that is committed by a person or a group of people with the intentions to cause offense, threaten and/or murder people because they are different than them. In terms of different, the individual has a different skin color, practices a different religion, their sexual orientation isn’t “right”, their national derivation, have disabilities,
…show more content…
There were many cases that made the United States change their laws. For example,
“In the United States capitol, the District of Columbia, the press labelled two separate crimes as hate crimes in the fall of 2008 with very different prosecutorial outcomes. Within a month, two gay men were attacked in the streets after hours near nightclubs – one a Black gay man, the other a White gay man. The incidents involved Black assailants who spouted homophobic epithets during the violent attacks. In one, the (Black) victim was robbed and killed; in the other, the (White) victim was knocked unconscious (Spielendder, 123).”
Both crimes were horrendous, but the judge didn’t label them as a hate crime, because they judge didn’t know how to properly determine what a “hate crime” was. The United States has taken steps to permit racist speech that was once forbidden, it has also developed hate crime statutes that enhance penalties for crimes ‘motivated by bias toward individuals or groups based on particular status characteristics such as race, religion, ancestry, sexual orientation, or gender’ (Jenness and Grattet 2001
There were many cases that made the United States change their laws. For example,
“In the United States capitol, the District of Columbia, the press labelled two separate crimes as hate crimes in the fall of 2008 with very different prosecutorial outcomes. Within a month, two gay men were attacked in the streets after hours near nightclubs – one a Black gay man, the other a White gay man. The incidents involved Black assailants who spouted homophobic epithets during the violent attacks. In one, the (Black) victim was robbed and killed; in the other, the (White) victim was knocked unconscious (Spielendder, 123).”
Both crimes were horrendous, but the judge didn’t label them as a hate crime, because they judge didn’t know how to properly determine what a “hate crime” was. The United States has taken steps to permit racist speech that was once forbidden, it has also developed hate crime statutes that enhance penalties for crimes ‘motivated by bias toward individuals or groups based on particular status characteristics such as race, religion, ancestry, sexual orientation, or gender’ (Jenness and Grattet 2001