Hate Crimes, a Chronic Disease

Hate Crimes is a Chronic Disease

Emmanuel Dike

COM/172

April 17, 2013

Christopher Pumphery

Hate Crimes is a Chronic Disease

Bigotry and violence, two detrimental issues associated with society since the beginning of time, and different kinds of experts have struggle to understand and figure a way to address these complex issues. The difference in ethnicities, races, beliefs, cultures, and class diversities generated a new class of forbade behavior: hate crime. There is no consensus on the definition of hate crimes because of the different views worldwide. In America, some states incorporate gender and disability into it laws against hate crimes, whereas others do not. According to Boeckmann (2002), “gender and disability are included as protected statuses under New Jersey’s hate crime laws, Pennsylvania, New Jersey’s close neighbor to the west, does not include either” (p. 208). In additional, hate crime recognition is debatable. Under some scenarios, hate crimes may be viewed as playful adolescents acts committed by immature young adults seeking excitement or peer acceptance, whereas others view hate crimes as constitutional rights with aftermaths that far surpass the victim’s injuries.

The Federal government of the United States defines hate crimes as criminal conduct stirred in full or in piece by a “performed negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons based on their race, religion, ethnicity/national origin, or sexual orientation” (FBI hate crimes data cited in F.M. Lawrence, 1999, p. 35). However, the definition does not account for some important factors like bias toward a hate crime victim based upon an assessment of contrast or oddness important to the culprit. The contrast may be fueled by a number of prestigious characteristics viewed extremely unwelcoming by the culprit; hence, the result is the violent act directed to any individual who possesses those attributes. Another agenda of hate crime not addressed in the FBI...