Hate Crimes

Crimes

I. Intro-What is a hate crime

. A hate crime is when a person intentionally selects a victim because of the race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. A person who commits a hate crime can come from any background and be any race. The term hate crime is meant to differentiate criminal behavior that is caused by prejudice from behavior that is motivated by greed jealously, anger, politics and like. Hate groups differ from one another in terms of membership, ideology and activities but do share one thing in common; they direct violence towards and against groups of people they do not understand. Most people committing hate crimes feel they are just doing Gods work of letting the victim know what they are or are doing is wrong according to that person. Hate crimes have been happening since the Nazis and Jews, blacks and whites, straight and GLBT and still happens to this day and for those reasons and more.

II. Types of hate crimes

A. Color/race

B. Religion

C. Nationality

D. Gender

E. Sexual preference

Incidents can include verbal attacks/abuse, harassment, random attacks, damage to property, physical abuse and attacks, bullying and/or graffiti.

III. Causes

Most hate crimes are caused by ignorance, confusion and fear of the unknown and different. Generating a violate reaction under the right circumstances can turn a person to commit a hate crime. Reasons for each person committing a hate crime maybe different but they all most likely share the same the feels and most don't even know that's why they are committing the crime.

IV. Hate crime laws

Hate crime laws vary for the most part from state to state, country to country and all around the world. Hate crimes usually fall into one of four categories:

1. laws defining specific bias hate crime acts as distinct crimes

2. Criminal penalty enhancement laws

3. Laws creating distinct civil causes of action for the hate crimes

4. Laws requiring administrative agencies to collect hate crime stats. Sometimes the laws focus on war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity with the prohibition against discriminatory action limited to public officials.

United state hate crime are punishable by federal prosecution if proved to have committed a hate crime. In October 2007 Congress has been considering the Matthew Shepherd Act which would now add to the list of types of hate crimes; gender, gender identity, sexual orientation and disability to the list. In 1993 the United States passed The National Hate crime Law to protect citizens from hate crimes.

V. Hate crime victims

In the US, anti- black attacks are the most frequently reported hate crime attacks. African Americans make up the second largest minority group, Spanish being the first. In 1995 of the 8000 hate crimes reported to the FBI about 3000 where motivated by bias against blacks. Other most common the crime victims are anti-Jews, anti-gay and anti-Hispanic

VI. Hate crime groups

The most known hate groups would most likely be the Ku Klux Klan/The White Aryan Resistance, al Qaeda (although more of a terrorist group), The New Black Panther Party and White Aryan Resistance. The Ku Klux Klan is one of the groups with the most history that goes back into the civil rights era. The KKK was formed by people who were angered by the increase of diversity in political office and in the workplace. Local and state officials that were members of the Klan aided in providing influence, money, and information to the racist organization. As the civil rights movement became accepted, it seemed as if the power of racist organizations deteriorated. However, with the Klan demanding freedom of speech, with political figures related to the Ku Klux Klan still bringing prejudice to politics throughout the country, and with multitudes of African-American churches being burned to the ground, becoming a threat to the blacks and anyone who would help them. Today the KKK isn't as publicly seen as back in the days but is still an existing hate groups.

The New Black Panthers or New Black Panther Party (NBPP), whose formal name is the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, is a U.S.-based black supremacist organization founded in Dallas, Texas in 1989. Despite its name, the NBPP's founding was independent; it is not an official successor organization to the Black Panther Party. Members of the original Black Panther Party have insisted that this party is illegitimate and have vociferously objected that there "is no new Black Panther Party. Critics characterize what they see as the NBPP's actively destructive extremism by pointing to examples such as Muhammad's "Million Youth March", a youth equivalent of the Million Man March in Harlem in which 6000 people protested police brutality but also featured a range of speakers calling for the extermination of whites in South Africa. The rally ended in scuffles with the NYPD as Muhammad urged the crowd to attack those officers who had attempted to confiscate