Abstract
Hate crimes are contemporary issues facing not only the United States but also other countries across the globe. The definition of hate crimes has always been challenging for scholars, policymakers, and researchers. Scholars worldwide have not reached an agreement regarding the definition of hate crime. Nevertheless, this research paper elaborates that any crime that may be subjected to an individual due to their racial, ethnic, or religious background should be highlighted as a hate crime. The reporting and documentation of hate crimes have not been a smooth operation. Various media outlets report varying cases of what they term hate crimes, further adding confusion to this contemporary issue. This research paper explains the understanding of hate crimes while exploring the scope and elements of hate crimes in the United States. It provides cases where the government courts expressed their views on the matter. Notably, the paper highlights the major differences between what can be termed a normal crime and a hate crime.
Introduction
Although the phrase “hate crime” is used in various contexts, fields, and settings, it may be a surprise that there isn’t a common agreement. Because of this, even within practice silos, disagreements amongst academics, legislators, and policymakers might arise while debating the problem (Schweppe, 2021). Some people believe that a hate crime is a situation that encompasses the entire spectrum of hostilities directed at minority communities generally. These hostilities range from what would be deemed criminal crimes to hate speech, discrimination, and even microaggressions. Others view the phrase “hate crime” as a limited concept that solely applies to illegal activities (Schweppe, 2021). This research paper will look at the varying definitions of hate crimes and how to understand the issue better. The scope of hate crimes and how they differ from other crimes are covered for better understanding.
Understanding Hate Crimes
For academics, decision-makers, and analysts, the definition of hate crimes presents a potentially unique dilemma. There is often broad consensus over the meaning of the constructs across policy fields and other criminality manifestations in academia. While there may be variations in legal definitions, for instance, of what constitutes rape from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, there are acknowledged definitional limitations for what that term signifies in various settings (Schweppe, 2021). This limitation enables, for instance, the notion to be explored and problematized by academics from other fields and jurisdictions, enabling analysts and policymakers to comprehend the issue internationally. This understanding makes it possible to compare data and learn from other countries how to best address this social evil.
Before addressing the issue of hate crimes, it is important to note that the word “hate” is employed in various situations. As a result, neither a clear lay definition nor a definition in psychology, law, or another academic area exists. The word “hate” is distinctly unclear in helping people understand hate crimes. Attempting to clarify the term “hate” has been compared to wading through a conceptual swamp (Schweppe, 2021). Because of this, “hate crime” legislation frequently employs words like bias, prejudice, or hostility alongside or occasionally in place of the word “hate.” Academics should have a wider view of hate, questioning if it necessarily stems from bigotry or prejudice (Schweppe, 2021). Even though the terms hate crimes and hate studies,” regardless of how they were first coined, are still frequently used to refer to the legal framework and the area of study generally, there is an ongoing discussion about the exact definitions of all of these terms.
Some people, especially laypeople, may understandably take the more extreme and violent examples in the media and apply a more literal meaning to them. Meanwhile, academics typically view hate crimes in a social context with complex meaning and provide a list of qualities they believe to be essential to its commission (Sheppard et al., 2021). Professionals are likely to adopt a much simpler perspective that calls for fewer maneuvers than those found in academic interpretations. In-depth efforts to establish a hate crime in legal terms and to describe the phenomena of hate crimes have been made in recent decades. According to scholars, when people define hate crimes, they are more interested in separating themselves from attitudes they claim not to hold than in naming a reality in a normative way. Behind the idea of “hate crime” lurks what appears to be an additional cultural definition of hate as the cause of mindless and unjustified acts of violence (Sheppard et al., 2021). The insistence on using hate in a certain circumstance could be less an issue of descriptive categorization and more a reflection of the normative commitment to empathize with the victims’ plight while excluding the opinions of the perpetrators.
Therefore, when people attempt to define and explain hate crimes, they do so to show solidarity with oppressed groups and convey to the offenders what kind of society they live in. The opinions they brutally convey are not widely held. People stress society’s disapproval of the offender’s motivation by criminalizing “hatred.” They try to distinguish between criminal behavior driven by prejudice and desire, envy, money, politics, and other emotions (Sheppard et al., 2021). In contrast to theft, burglary, or violence, hate crimes focus on the perpetrator’s views, values, and conduct. It is widely acknowledged that hate crimes serve a symbolic function, highlighting the injustice of crimes motivated by hatred, where the retribution of criminals is viewed as a denial of their heinous deeds. As a result, by making hate crimes illegal, society is also saying that it will not stand by while people commit acts of violent discrimination (Sheppard et al., 2021). In discussions of the rationale for hate crime laws, academics specifically address the “message” component of such offenses. As the 20th century draws to a close, among the most important truths is that racism cannot be tolerated. The idea must be heard and understood in every nook and cranny of society, including the streets, jails, offices, and public transportation.
Hate crimes are generally portrayed as message crimes during the time of commission, in addition to serving a symbolic function at the time of criminalization. This portrayal has two effects; first, by perpetrating the crime, the offender communicates with the victim and the victim’s community. The acts are intended to send a message to the primary target and the society to which they belong because the victims are interchangeable (Sheppard et al., 2021). Their message is that they are “different” from other people. The goal of a hate crime is to terrify a group of individuals who share in common a single deviation from the specified norm – religion, color, gender, or sexual orientation (Sheppard et al., 2021). As such, hate crimes have severe effects on the victims as well as their community.
Scope of Hate Crimes
While there is some evidence that the number of prejudice crimes grew throughout the final two decades of the 20th century, it is still challenging to determine whether the problem has worsened. The public’s worry over the extent of bias-related crime in the United States significantly increased during the 1980s (Pezzella et al., 2019). A perceived worsening of the prejudice crime issue likely led to this worry and the subsequent passage of bias crime laws across the United States. Hate crime grew throughout the 1980s before mostly leveling off in the 1990s. This rise is according to data from both governmental and independent data-gathering agencies. However, these figures continue to be erratic and unfinished.
Additionally, the figures acquired at the close of the 1980s and during the initial to mid-1990s showed an increase in the problem’s administrative and legislative awareness and the prejudice crime problem itself. Researchers and commentators on prejudice crimes generally concur that these crimes rose yearly from the middle of the 1980s through the early 1990s (Pezzella et al., 2019). The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League are some of the major groups that gather data on bias-motivated violence, and all three reported such consistent growth.
The hate crime issue, the general public’s view, and the government’s approach are influenced by one another. Independent data collection and reporting encourage public concern about prejudice crimes, which are considered to be increasing. Such worry generates successive legislative and administrative responses, more official reporting, and a perceived rise in biased crime that is even bigger (Osterbur, 2020). As a result, the issue and perception become intertwined, and the seeming rise in hate crimes is no longer just a reflection of growing hatred and inaction, as the data alone would imply, but also a sign of growing comprehension and action, as the rise in responses to the issue suggests. On the other hand, the majority of prejudiced crime victims likely do not record incidences at all. This failure is despite increased hate crime tracking by police agencies (Osterbur, 2020). Systematic underreporting of prejudiced crimes may be caused by victims’ mistrust of the authorities, language obstacles, and fears of public exposure or the perpetrator’s vengeance. There are numerous issues with assessing the present prevalence of bias offenses, but creating a baseline for useful comparisons is one of the biggest of these issues.
Therefore, it is impossible to say with certainty how much bias offenses are rising and how much of that rise is due to perception. However, the clear connection between perception and issue does not diminish how serious the issue is. The incidence of a serious degree of prejudice-motivated crime is established, notwithstanding the challenges in assessing bias crime levels precisely (Osterbur, 2020). Furthermore, determining the severity of the issue is not necessarily undermined by the mutual feedback link between the degree of hate crime and the general impression of this level. As the definition of a biased crime is expanded, behavior that may have previously been labeled as a “prank” is now correctly identified as bias-motivated. This expansion indicates that bias crimes were previously undercounted rather than that hate crimes are being overcounted.
Elements of Hate Crimes
In the United States, crimes inspired by the victim’s race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin are covered by biased crime statutes. Many also include characteristics like sexual orientation or gender, and some even disability or age. Bias crime laws can increase the punishment for a crime when it is perpetrated with little motivation or create a new crime of stereotype-motivated violence (Dreyer et al., 2020). The motivation behind the behavior is the most important indicator that an actor is a biased criminal. The focus on incentive rather than the common focus on intent makes bias offenses interesting but not unique. Based on this, some academics have opposed discriminatory crime laws; this criticism is addressed below.
According to the discriminating selection method of biased crimes, the victim chosen by the offender is how these crimes are defined. It doesn’t matter why a perpetrator chooses a victim based on race or another group; it’s enough that they did (Dreyer et al., 2020). The discriminatory selection model attracted much attention since the Supreme Court affirmed a statute using this technique in Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476. (1993) (MacAvaney et al., 2019). The group animus approach of prejudice crimes categorizes crimes according to the victim’s group and how important that group is to the offender’s reason for committing the offense. Several states, including Massachusetts and Florida, have legislation against group hate and prejudice (MacAvaney et al., 2019). However, all instances of group animus bias offenses also involve discriminatory selection. Many (MacAvaney et al., 2019), if not the majority, portray this criterion. A purse thief, for instance, targets only women and finds it more practical to take handbags than to make wallets out of men’s pockets. Such a snatcher would have made a discriminatory victim selection based on gender, but not out of hatred for the group.
Most states with discriminatory crime laws have passed laws based on both theories. These statutes offer severer punishments for crimes committed “because of” or “because of” the victim’s real or potential membership in a certain group. Although neither discriminatory selection nor hatred are mentioned explicitly in these statutes, they have some characteristics in common (Simons, 2019). This similarity is because hate crime laws focus on the victim’s choice by the offender. Additionally, “because of” statutes are similar to hate, especially in states that demand a determination of malice. In any of these theories, bias crimes might result from mixed motivation, when a violent criminal is driven to commit the crime for various reasons, including bias. A hate crime must have a significant bias motivation that drives the offender’s criminal behavior. According to the ruling by the Supreme Court in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 120 S.Ct. 2348 of 2000, a jury must show every component of a prejudiced crime beyond a reasonable doubt (MacAvaney et al., 2019). The sentencing judge cannot increase the term for a prejudiced crime based on a finding of the preponderance of the evidence.
Difference Between Hate Crimes and Other Crimes
The distinction between prejudice and other crimes is the main factor used to justify laws against bias crimes. Parallel crimes, or those that share many characteristics with hate crimes but lack a biased purpose, do less harm than bias crimes. The victim as an individual, the victim’s organization or society, and the community as a whole are all harmed by this (Sethi, 2018). The victim of hate offenses typically suffers more detrimental emotional and psychological effects. A hate crime does not target its victim for an impersonal or random purpose. Instead, a hate crime occurs when the victim is targeted due to a unique, personal motive, such as their color, ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference.
Furthermore, the victim of a hate crime is powerless to alter the trait that rendered him a target in the first place. He cannot rationally reduce the risks of subsequent assaults. Beyond what is often seen in crime victims, prejudiced crimes produce a heightened sense of vulnerability (Sethi, 2018). According to studies, victims of hate crimes frequently exhibit psychological symptoms, including despair or isolation, worry, powerlessness, and a strong sensation of loneliness (Sethi, 2018). Beyond the harm caused to the victim or victims who were the immediate targets of the criminal action, hate crimes impact the target community or the group of people who share the same religion, race, ethnicity, or other characteristics.
Bias crime affects the target community in a way that is unmatched by how the public reacts to similar crimes. The response of the target population extends beyond simple pity for the immediate victim. When a biased crime occurs, individuals of the targeted society see it as an assault on them personally and directly. Also, the effects of prejudiced crimes may extend beyond the target population and immediate victims to the entire society (Bell, 2019). This influence can be felt on various levels and can cause harm on a continuum, from the most obvious to the subtest. The impacts of isolation outlined above portray a long-term impact on a community at the most fundamental level. Even individuals who are sensitive to the condition of the victim’s family may be unwilling to put their children or themselves in danger and avoid interacting with the victims, which exacerbates the issues related to social isolation (Bell, 2019). Hate crime offenses harm the community more severely because it traumatizes the victims who live in isolation without proper interventions. Such acts offend not only the common principle of fairness among its residents and religious and racial harmony in a diversified society but also the community’s major fear for the safety of its individuals and their property.
Defining which groups are to be covered by a biased crime law inevitably involves making a normative statement about the function of particular groups or their traits. Hate crime legislation is preoccupied with traits that point to social divisions that go back to a culture’s historical past. Racial discrimination, which has its deepest roots in enslavement, is the most obvious example of a social split in American society (Bell, 2019). As a result, every hateful offense legislation in the United States incorporates race as a category. Similar arguments can be made for the other categories of traditional hate crimes, such as color, race, national origin, and religion, when a state government contemplates adding more groups to its biased crime law. It is also partly about where those groups fit into society. Finding social fault lines is a necessary step in drafting the parameters of a hate crime statute.
Conclusion
The precise definitions and parameters of “hate crime” within and between countries are disputed by academics, policymakers, and practitioners. The aim is to offer precision and clarity to the topic by defining the term’s bond. Some definitions of the term are legalistic and constrictive; therefore, some people would object to such definitions due to their limitations. The lack of a common definition of hate crime has challenged how effective policymakers and legislation can be applied in dealing with the vice. Hate crime is an offense that affects not only the victim of the crime but also people in the community that shares racial, ethnic, or religious values with the victim. To encompass the wide range of these acts and their effects, it might be necessary to create a new umbrella term that encompasses hate speech, hate incidents, expression offenses, and hate crimes. However, hate crimes are a general term used to describe injustice committed against another person based on race, religion, and sexual orientation, among other grounds. Therefore, hate crimes propagate racial and religious discrimination, and governments worldwide should put harsh measures to combat such crimes.
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