Hate Crime in the United States of America (USA)

Hate crime laws continue to exist to protect citizens in the United States from bias. This treatment of people of diverse religious beliefs, race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and handicap (Ralph, Capewell, and Bonnett, 2016) is still illegal under federal law. Furthermore, law enforcement remains under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice, with help from the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation). These two government entities are still in charge of collecting and disseminating hate crime statistics. However, different states in America have different hate crime laws and interpretations of the law. This difference in the law provides the opportunity for the abuse of individuals of certain caliber with minimal criminal consequences. However, some of the important questions were keen to ask in the juncture remain confined on the matter of development of laws over the history to current laws; the application of the hate crimes laws in Victoria; present and future amendments to the existing law. Additionally, the jurisprudence of the hate crimes legislation and factors favoring the violation of people rights. Consequentially, the primary case study the scope of this essay will focus substantially on the execution of the law in America while highlighting what hate crime are, the difference in impact and requirements involved in curbing of the menace (Cheng, Ickes, and Kenworthy, 2013).
What is a Hate Crime?
Hate crime refers to any prejudice motivate crime directed towards members of a particular clique, group or ideology. These criminal acts remain motivated by bias and misleading ideas highlighting how wrong other people's beliefs and ideologies remain misleading and unacceptable. Therefore, these crimes remain motivated and inspired by our misled ego and confidence and the attempts into making that belief widespread and a norm. The staying away from the standard highlights as the sole reason why perpetrators attack their victims. This twisted mentality often arises from the brainwashing of individuals by offering them substantiated information on the truthiness or falseness of a particular belief.
Historical Origin of the Lexicon
The term hate crime originates in the early 80's in New York as a designation of racial offenses. The term was first used after an incident whereby a black man was killed by a rowdy crowd of youths chanting ethnic epithets. Even though the term remains commonly employed by the government and the media, the words invariably communicated that hatred formed parts of the crime. Nonetheless, it remains imperative to note that often must involve violent hate crimes although the terminology continued to be a common lexicon in the public domain the broadness in the meaning of threat to imply hate crime still continued (Hate Is Not Speech: A Constitutional Defense of Penalty Enhancement for Hate Crimes, 1993).
The actual date of the passage of the first hate crime statute remains a debatable historically. Some argue the first set of laws passed between 1960 and 1970 mark the first hate crime laws passed in the United States of American (Iganski, 2008). Additionally, most of these laws form the basic structure for which the previous rules were formulated. However according to some experts of the law, the first statute was passed in 1981, however, since that time there have been some contributions in altering the contents on the original law.
The difference between Hate Crime and Ordinary Crime.
The main difference of hate crimes from ordinary crime remains in the sole motivation of the offender and resultant impact on the victim. The criminal often picks the target from a particular group randomly. Unlike the other crimes, the perpetrator chooses the victim to represents a certain symbol and consequentially communicate an individual message (Blazak, 2011). This message is mainly disseminated to impact not only the victim but other members of the community. Therefore, the crimes of bias can also be referred to as symbolic crimes.
The primary role of hate crimes remains to intimidate and terrorize the community and friends of the victim. The criminal positions him/herself as an executor to the offense of these individuals for their proclivities, inclinations, and beliefs. Therefore, in a bid to change the general public perception, the perpetrator commits the crime. Additionally, the primary motivation for the act can be inspired by a sense of social commitment in segregating who to participate in the community and who to eliminate. Therefore, through an understanding of radicalization of the other members of the community, the criminals end up damaging the fabric of the society and community through promotion of animosity between former friends and neighbors.
Legislature as the Possible Remedy to Hate Crimes.
The existence of a hate crime law aims to install measures that safeguard the rights of the minority and also provides the penalties for the violation of other rights (Iganski, 2008). Subsequently, different nations have different installations and stances when it comes to the issue. However, on effect remains the same most countries subscribing to the Rome Statute remains staunch signatories to the laws prohibiting the violations of other people rights by bias and prejudice; therefore they have local edicts against the crime (Brax and Munthe, 2015).

The differences between the different hate crimes
The various hate crimes exemplify difference in the criminal involved, victims targeted and possible penalty to the offense. First and foremost it remains imperative to note that hate crime is unusual given that they are aimed to communicate a particular message to the victims and their community. Additionally, the different degree of the offenses attracts many legal repercussions. The main factors causing the difference in hate crimes remain compounded on the following factors:
Equity and Rights
The first and most important violation of the hate crimes remains the foundational ideals of equality that every person enjoys in the community. Equality is the fundamental value attached to humanity of any individual despite their economic, cultural or political backgrounds. The primary role of the ideals of equality remains founded on the provision of equal chances despite our overlying differences and diversity. The idea entertains a notion whereby our collective diversity remains the distinguishing factor in the struggle to reach the heights of our potential. Therefore, given the united stance of most nations on earth on the issue, the existence of laws recognizing the importance of human rights remains at the centerpiece of most constitutional documents in the world including the United Nations (UN) declarations (Al Hussein, 2017). This whole idea of recognizing the rights of the different members of the society also relies on the notion of preservation of human dignity promoting the importance of family while discouraging the violations of people's rights. The ideals of human rights remain the most repeated theme on core constitutional document from most countries whose violations attracts heft and symbolic legal implications.
Effect on Victim
The various hate crime has different effects on the victims. The magnitude of these ramifications depends on how much damage is caused coupled by how vulnerable the victim was. Therefore, when the accused is arraigned in court some of the most significant deduction to be made will factor in the damages accrued by the victim. These costs might include physical loss, monetary forfeiture or psychological trauma. Therefore, in the application of the just and swift justice though thorough jurisprudence the criminals will pay differently depending on the extent of the injury caused. Nonetheless, it remains imperative to indicate that by targeting members of a particular identity, the crime ends up causing greater harm compared to ordinary offenses. Additionally, the victims in such a scenario include the actual victim and other individuals related to the victim.
Community Impact
The victim to a hate crime forms part of a greater community; therefore, their fears and feelings of vulnerability reflect that of the general public. This situation arises from the threat of one member of a targeted group marking the risk of future attacks on any of the reaming members. This trend in behaviorisms remains a common characteristic in areas where the community has historically experienced discrimination.
The rate of social acceptance to the acts of discrimination remains the fuel that ensures the spread of hate crimes. Although hate crimes remain a common occurrence between the majority and minority tribes, the acceptance of the vice to go on unchecked by the latter plays to the advantage of in further perpetration of the crime. Therefore, marginalized communities often arise from victims of a hate crime continuously violated. Consequently, application of failsafe mechanisms in the enforcing strong hate crime laws acts as the only defense for individuals of the backgrounds.
Security Issues
Hate crimes have the potential to spin off control into serious safety and public order problems. These crimes often affect a wider circle of individuals compared to the ordinary crime through causing massive social and civil unrest. These unrest have the potential of escalating into bigger conflicts provided social tensions currently existing are emphasized and fanned, to the level of resulting into societal disintegration with social groups pulling away (Iganski and Lagou, 2015). Nonetheless, it should be noted that hate crimes have the ability to exacerbate existing tensions playing to a larger social and community unrest. Therefore, during internal conflicts, hate crimes offer a faster means of climaxing the rate of agitation to another level.
The United States remains the first country attempt to address the problems posed by hate crimes. This issue affected the integration of the other minority groups into the American society; therefore the majority were on the forefront in the promoting racial discrimination against the minority (Zaykowski, 2010). Therefore, through the initiative of the Congress, courts, and police. However, these initiative have always been amassed great oppositions from the majority who view the move by the federal government in the implementation of the hate crime laws as the threat to the position of the majority in the society as superiors. Nonetheless, despite the detrimental side attacks to ruin these attempts, the initiatives such as the Anti-Defamation League of 1979 coupled with radical NGOs and political figures such as John Conyers Jr. of Michigan assisted greatly in the course. Through navigating the issue on congressional hearings divulging more information on the vice, a contribution that detailed the crime in a well-documented rubric. This among many other moments marked the inception and adoption of the federal laws prohibiting crimes of prejudice.
The laws formed through the American federal system ensured that all crimes of hate were tried in the state courts. This endeavor took full effect in 1990, allowing Congress to pass bills and penalties for hate crimes. The Congress first passed a bill titled the Hate Crimes Statistics Act tasked with the statistical collection of data in the year 1990. In the year 1994, the Congress passed a punishment titled Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancements Act which dictated the penalties for crimes against minorities groups. However, in the wake of the arson attacks of 1995, the next year saw the implementation of increased penalties for hate crimes. The move involved combined efforts on the federal and state legislative government in coming up with legislatures to control the situation. This effort also included setting up a particular office at the States District's Attorney's offices to deal with such kinds of crime. Additionally, police forces in the major cities such as Boston and New York formed police units to address the issue of bias and prejudice inspired crimes. This technique created the method and framework applied by the USA government in dealing with matters of motivated racial violence (Cheng, Ickes, and Kenworthy, 2013).
Conclusion
The relevance of the last twenty-five years of legal revolutions and legislative reforms remains responsible for the enactment of laws designed to address the problems posed by hate-motivated crimes and violence. Factor such as a growing sense of social movement remains among the factors that play to the attainment of awareness in the society (End hate crime, 2008). The application of even strict laws in the curbing of cases of hate crimes plays to the downgrading of the frequency of occurrences of such incidents
The law provides the appropriate remedies to meet the violation of human rights through hate crimes with the principles of proportionality though there exist some setbacks. It remains impossible to draw the line of how harsher the punishment should be provided the culpability and extent of harm cannot be established. Nonetheless, it remains major social problems when prominent members of the community advocate for the implementation of hate crime laws. The revision of the law over the years has ensured that different bases and panoplies on the matter are revisited and covered. A good example of such area includes sexuality, religion, and sex, whereby the most unlikely group to be violated ends up as the victims (MCPHAIL, 2002). The improvement of the law to cover even inactive states such as sexuality compared to homosexuality stands out as an improvement in the legislature and jurisprudence of the hate crime laws. Consequently, the law has subsequently undergone changes so it can provide a long-standing and subsequent reduction in prejudice and bias-motivated violence. Nonetheless, it remains important to give credit to the previous laws that played an important role in the creation of the hate crime laws.




















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