Hate Crimes in America: Cause and Effects

Introduction

The American Psychological Association defines hate crimes as "violent acts against people, property, or organizations because of the group to which they belong or identify with" (Wessler, p. 102). The different groups usually involved include homosexuals, ethnic groups, and religion affiliations.

Dr. Jack McDevitt, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, said hate crimes are forms of messages the offender wants to send to members of certain groups letting them know they are unwelcome in that neighborhood, community, school or workplace (APA, 1998).

Causes and effects

Crimes upon persons because of a difference in how they appear, believe, or act have been a growing concern throughout history. According to Eric Holder, a former assistant U.S. Attorney General, "The true scope of these crimes as a growing national problem is just now being realized." (Holder, 1999) Looking back into history, many crimes could be construed as a hate crime, yet were ignored. President Lincoln was not shot for being President or for being a white male. He was shot for his beliefs against slavery.

Does hate crime imply on any case when a person is convicted for inflicting damage on someone "different"? It is often difficult to set a benchmark for measuring sufficiency of hate as a cause to label it in front of crime. The term can be conveniently stretched and squeezed by people with different ideas and biases. The four white policemen who brutally beat Rodney King Jr., a black man, half to death for merely speeding is determined by the court's judgment, as officers performing their duty. Hate, to those particular jurors and judge, was not a valid concern. To them, the beating was not due to the officers' resentment for a black man, but because they were simply disciplining an offender of the law. To the minority groups, the court's ruling was outrageous. From their point of view, the savage beating was unnecessary and hate was obviously the factor which induce the four cops to perform such a nasty feat. Because people have varying views and opinions, application of the term "hate crime" is not always relevant. Can we assume the murder of Nicole Simpson by OJ Simpson a hate crime since it involves a black man killing a white woman or are there more in depth twist to the case? People who are willing to do a little thinking, do not just look at the difference of the victim and the convicted and draw conclusions of whether or not the crime is hate related, they examine all the other psychological elements also. The most common way of judgment is to ponder: if the victim was of a different race, religion, or sexual orientation, would the same injurious action still have taken place? In order to picture the virtual scenario, we would need to think critically and be able to delineate out hate, and to do that, we need to understand why people hate.

No one is born to be prejudice. It is the society ...