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Hate
Crimes
What
is a hate crime?
- While legal
definitions vary state by state, hate crimes are criminal acts
motivated, in whole or in part, by bias against the perceived
race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation,
gender, age, or disability of the victim
- Perpetrators
commonly use hate speech - slang, slurs, or other derogatory language
-in the course of committing their crimes
- Hate crimes
include
- Personal
crimes of violence such as physical assaults, assaults with
weapons, robbery, rape, murder, harassment and intimidation
- Crimes
against property such as vandalism and arson - against homes,
businesses, and places of worship etc
- Hate crimes
may be committed anywhere - in homes, schools, offices, public
buildings, parks, streets etc
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Understanding
Hate Crimes
- Crimes motivated
by bias and hate are always rooted in intolerance and ignorance,
if not bigotry and racism
- A critical
hallmark of these crimes is the adoption by perpetrators of negative
stereotypes - the attribution of negative characteristics to all
members of a group - to enable them to turn innocent people into
legitimate targets for attack at will.
- Hostile stereotyping
allows perpetrators to impose collective blame on a whole group
for harm, incidents, or situations committed (or allegedly committed)
by a few of its members. Persons innocent of all wrongdoing are
held guilty by association, simply by virtue of their identity
as members the group.
- Hate crimes
are part of the daily experience of many immigrant, ethnic, religious,
and other minority groups in America, but fear and anger provoked
by external events can quickly increase the number of incidents
that particular groups experience. For example, in the wake of
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, hundreds of South
Asians, Arabs, and Muslims reportedly became targets of violence,
harassment, and intimidation.
- Individuals
singled out for attack are not always correctly identified - Sikhs
and Hindus may be taken for Muslims, South Asians for Arabs, heterosexual
men for gay men - but the violence and intimidation, nonetheless,
constitute hate crimes.
- Hate crimes
affect whole communities - sending messages not only to individual
victims, but to the all members of the victim's particular community.
They create widespread fear in targeted populations through violence
and intimidation perpetrated against individuals.
- Hate crimes
affect society as a whole in a fundamental way because they attack
America's democratic principles and threaten to undermine our
ideals of tolerance, religious freedom, diversity, and equal treatment.
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Are
hate crimes a serious problem in America?
- Hate crimes
are widespread although they often go unreported, unrecorded,
and uninvestigated
- In 1999,
a total of 7,876 hate crime incidents were reported to law enforcement
(2)
- The overwhelming
majority (4,295) of these crimes were racially motivated
- The second
two largest categories were crimes motivated (1) by hatred
of the victim's religion and (2) by the victim's presumed
sexual orientation
- There were
457 active hate groups in the United States in 1999 (1)
- 138 can
be categorized as Ku Klux Klan groups
- 130 as
Neo Nazis, 40 as Racist Skinheads
- 46 as
Christian Identity groups
- 21 as
Black Separatists the remaining
- 82 as
"other"
- There were
a total of 305 hate web sites on the Internet in early 2000 (2)
- There have
been disturbing news reports about increases in the incidence
of hate crimes perpetrated against Arab-Americans, Muslims, and
South Asians since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
There were similar attacks on members of these communities at
the time of the Gulf war against Iraq.
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Victim
Reactions to Hate Crimes
- The responses
of individual victims vary
- Victim reactions
are likely to be influenced by a variety of factors including
the nature and duration of the crime, the victim's age, prior
history of victimization, personal resilience, family and social
environment, access to support networks (including victim services),
the response of law enforcement, and many others.
- Responses
of victims are similar to those of victims of any crime, and include:
- Fear
- for themselves, their families, their communities, their
livelihoods, their way of life
- Suspicion
- for example, of phone calls, strangers at the door
- Sadness
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Anger
- Alienation
- Feelings
of powerlessness and vulnerability
- Loss
of trust
- Feelings
of betrayal and injustice
- Loss
of confidence in law enforcement/whole criminal justice system
- Fear
that the criminal justice system is also biased against the
group the victim belongs to
- Changes
of life-style - limiting their activities and where they go,
staying at home as much as possible, not going out alone,
not letting children go out alone
- Feelings
of stress
- Self-blame
- Self-hatred
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How
to help victims and combat hate crime
- Show victims
- and their communities - you care about what happened to them
- Promote
racial and religious tolerance and cross-cultural understanding
and respect
- Be alert
to their needs for help, support, and encouragement
- Reach out
and reassure victims, their families, and their communities that
they aren't alone
- Encourage
victims to make decisions that may help them regain a sense of
safety and control - for example
- Reporting
the crime to the police
- Working
with local law enforcement to apprehend and prosecute the
perpetrator
- Investigating
local resources/accessing services that might help them recover
and rebuild their lives
- Becoming
involved with community organizations to improve community
safety
- Helping
to educate the public about hate crimes, becoming an activist
in the fight against hate crimes
- Encourage
local law enforcement to treat hate crimes with the seriousness
they deserve
- Stand against
any form of "vigilante justice"
- Join forces
with individuals and groups in your community who are speaking
out against intolerance and bigotry
- Help educate
the public to be respectful of those whose race, religious beliefs,
cultural traditions, lifestyles, and values differ from their
own
- Help improve
community relations by creating new forums/systems to resolve
inter-group conflicts peacefully
- Educate yourself
and raise awareness about the goals and activities of organized
hate groups
- Actively
reaffirm your belief in America's democratic principles and ideals
of tolerance, diversity, and social equality
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(1)
Southern Poverty Law Center, Spring 2000
(2) Ibid.
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