Hate CrimesEssay Preview: Hate CrimesReport this essayHate crimes are criminal actions intended to harm or intimidate people because of their race, ethnicity sexual orientation, religion or other minority group status. Hate crimes are also referred to as bias crimes.
The problem of hate crimes has attracted increasing research attention since the 1980s. This is especially true for criminologists and law enforcement personnel who focus on documenting the prevalence of the problem and formulating responses to it. In researching hate crimes I found some very interesting statistics that I did not know about:
Ordinary crimes are generally committed by people that are familiar with the victims.Hate crimes are committed by strangers, and most perpetrators are under the age of 20.As of September of 2001 there were 7 states that did not have hate crime laws.Arkansas, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, New Mexico, S. Carolina and Wyoming.20 states have laws that dont include sexual orientation as a protected groupOn 7/4/00, Kentucky was the latest state to have a hate crime bill signed into lawThe original 1969 federal hate crime law only covered race, color, religion, and national origin. It did not include sexual orientation, gender, or disability status, and only applied if the victim was engaged in a federally protected activity.
Law makers have passed legislation to encourage data collection efforts and also attached stiffer penalties to hate crimes at both state and federal levels. In 1997, President Bill Clinton held a White House Conference on Hate Crimes. During this conference, he announced a number of initiatives, including his support for expanded coverage of hate crimes in federal legislation and his decision to include questions about hate crimes in the National Crime Victimization Survey. When the Hate Crimes Act of 2000 was enacted, the New York State Legislature offered different arguments for hate crime legislation. They specifically found that:
“Hate crimes do more than threaten the safety and welfare of all citizens. They inflict on victims incalculable physical and emotional damage and tear at the very fabric of free society. Crimes motivated by invidious hatred toward particular groups not only harm individual victims but send a powerful message of intolerance and discrimination to all members of the group to which the victim belongs. Hate crimes can and do intimidate and disrupt entire communities and vitiate the civility that is essential to healthy democratic processes. In a democratic society, citizens cannot be required to approve of the beliefs and practices of others, but must never commit criminal acts on account of them. Current law does not adequately recognize the harm to public order and individual
, and has effectively taken away basic protections from public employees.
This is not a new debate, but it can scarcely be called one that has arisen in modern American law. In its many manifestations to the West, the First Amendment has made it all the more important that the rights of free speech be inviolable.
Criminal Justice Today
While it looks as though hate crime statutes may be a threat to civil liberties, it is still a threat to the American tradition of free, civil discourse and the constitutional right to be heard. These threats must be addressed, and there seems little that can be said about them. There is, however, a growing body of evidence that a significant portion of a criminal justice system’s efforts to combat hate crimes continue to fail.
The first step in the fight against hate hate crimes can be identified by some other ways to combat it. The First Amendment protects the freedom to express our views, and the First Amendment extends to the right of speech. This is particularly important as it is important that the First Amendment protections are not eroded because a federal law violates these rights. To address hate crimes, the First Amendment does not protect individual conduct.
There is great irony in the fact that not only hate, but all forms of hateful propaganda, including racial hate speech, have been brought under the definition of hate at the federal level since the dawn of time. Although the First Amendment recognizes the right of speech as essential to American democracy, those who choose not to express these views can sometimes threaten the safety and welfare of others and harm others as individuals.
Despite the historical and current difficulties involved in combating hate hate crime, the federal government can work to address and protect the rights of individuals who choose not to express their beliefs, however they may think they do.
The Second Stage
Criminal justice is about recognizing and treating the right to speech without fear or favor. In the United States, there is no constitutional right of speech to be feared or honored as a political or ideological position or affiliation. The First Amendment guarantees the right of speech to be heard as it has been recognized by all, not just those in power. These constitutional rights are the source of many controversies and legal challenges throughout the world, and in recent years they have led states to pursue some of those principles and to expand their civil liberties to encompass these rights.
These constitutional rights have also brought many states to restrict speech that is not simply protected by law, but seeks to create or encourage a broader intolerance of groups and ideas. Such speech is protected by the First Amendment for its support of human rights, freedom of speech, and the rule of law. Some of these rights are protected by the Second, the First, and the Fourteenth Amendments as well, for more specific protection of people’s constitutional rights, liberties and fundamental rights. These rights and freedoms are well-established in common with the First Amendment, and are protected by the First Amendment by the Fourteenth Amendment. This article provides examples of different cases involving state and federal efforts to protect these rights and freedoms.
Finally, this article explores how individual federal, state, local