English 913 January 2003 “A hate crime is a criminal offense committed against persons,property or society that is motivated, in whole or in part, by anoffender’s bias against an individual’s or a group’s race, religion,ethnic/national origin, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation. “(theiacp. org) Hate Crimes are a big problem in today’s society. They have a bigimpact on the victim and also the community around the victim. Sometimespeople even get killed in the involvement of a hate crime.
“There is a sickness eating away at the strength of humankind andthat sickness is Hate. Daily, throughout the world, men, women, andchildren are tortured, brutalized, and murdered simply because of theirbeliefs, their race, their physical state, or their sexuality, and equallyguilty as the perpetrators are those among us who remain indifferent and/orsilent. ” (stopthehate. net) Therefore, hate crimes have a negative effect on society. They hurtthe victim and the victim’s family a lot. The majority of hate crimes areagainst gays.
Unfortunately, the number of hate crimes is constantlyincreasing. The number of hate crimes has increased over the past decadeand has had a negative impact on our society; in turn this has greatlyaffected many racial, religious, and sexual orientation groups. A racial hate crime is an incident that is perceived to be racist bythe victim or any other person. (haltonwatch. co. uk).
Most of all racialhate crimes are committed against people of the African American descent. In 1998, 65. 5% of all national hate crimes were committed againstpeople based on their race and/or ethnicity. 57.
2% of those racial hatecrimes were Anti-Black, 15. 6% were Anti-White, 9. 5% were Anti-Hispanic,5. 8% were Anti-Asian/Pacific Islander, 5.
6% were Anti-Multi-Racial, 5. 4%were other race, and 1% were Anti-American Indian/ Alaskan Native. (asuc. org) In 1999, there were a total of 7,876 hate crime incidents reported.
There were 4,295 crimes committed that were racial. More than half of allthe hate crimes that were committed in 1999 were racial bias. (fbi. gov) In 2000, there were 4,337 reported incidents of racial hate.
2,884 ofthose incidents were Anti-Black, 875 were Anti-White, 281 incidents wereAnti-Asian/Pacific Islander, 240 were Anti-multi-racial group, and 57incidents were Anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native. (vivisimo. com) In New York Sate, in Richmond Hill located in Queens, an elderly Sikhman was beaten with a baseball bat while two others were shot at withpaintball guns. In Palos Hills, Illinois, two Muslim girls were beaten atMoraine Valley College because they were Muslim. Also on September 16,2001 a man rammed his car into a grocery store owned by an Arab. BetweenSeptember 11 and September 26, 2001, many Arab-Americans were singled outof airports and searched because they were of the Arab descent.
Finally, ataxi-driver of Indian descent was accused of being a terrorist all becausehe was wearing a turban. (esrnational. org) A religious hate crime is a crime committed against a person basedupon his or her religious beliefs. Sometimes people are victims ofreligious hate crimes just because of their ethnic origin. They may noteven have the religious beliefs but the person or persons committing thecrimes often assume the person has the beliefs just because of theirorigin. In 1998, in the state of California, the religion hate crimeincidents were very high.
77. 9% of all incidents were Anti-Jewish, 7. 5%were Anti-other religion, 6. 2% were Anti- Protestant, 5. 8% of the incidentswere Anti-Catholic, 1. 8% Anti-Islamic, and 0.
9% of religion hate crimes inthe state of California were Anti-multi-religious group. (asuc. org) In 1998, the National religious hate crimes rate was not too high. 77. 8% of he hate crime incidents were Anti-Jewish, 9% were Anti-otherreligious group, 4. 4% were Anti-Catholic, 4.
2% were Anti-Protestant, 2. 9%of the incidents were Anti-Multi-Religious groups, 1. 5% were Anti-Islamic,and 0. 1% were Anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.
(asuc. org) In 2000, there were 1,472 religious hate crime incidents. 1,109(75%) of them were Anti-Jewish, 172 (12%) were Anti-other religious group,59 (4%) were Anti-protestant, 56 (4%) were Anti-Catholic, 44 (3%) incidentswere Anti-multi-religious groups, 28 (2%) were Anti-Islamic, and 4incidents reported were Anti-atheism/agnosticism/etc. (vivisomo. com) In 1998, Buford O.
Furrow Jr. went on a shooting rampage in a JewishCommunity Center. Furrow show six people leaving one postal carrier deadand five others wounded. Furrow was pleaded guilty of murder and will notface the death penalty but will serve a term of life in prison withoutparole.
(cnn. com) The 1969 Federal Hate Crime law covers race, color, religion andnational origin only. Does not include sexual orientation, gender ordisability status. Only applies .
