Definition Essay: What Is A Hate Crime?

What is a hate crime? “Hate” Crime is not really about hate, but about bias or prejudice. Definitions differ somewhat from state to state, but essentially hate crime refers to criminal conduct motivated by prejudice. The literal definition for a hate crime is “ a prejudice-motivated crime, which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her membership in a certain social group. Examples would be, sex, ethnicity, disability, language, nationality, physical appearance, religion, and gender identity or sexual orientation. We all have Prejudice however against individuals, groups, foods, countries, and so on. Criminals probably have many conscious and unconscious prejudices, for example, against people who are or appear to be rich, poor,successful, unsuccessful, drunks, drug addicts, and so forth. By contrast, racial, religious and gender prejudice are widely and vigorously condemned. In some states, sexual orientation bias is included in the hate crime laws, in others states it is not. The same goes for gender bias, bias based upon mental or physical disability, and a bias based on age.
Many people continue to portray the United States as a nation of two races, a dominant and oppressive white race and a subjugated and victimized black race. That picture is more accurate in the …show more content…
A great deal of graffiti, in public and private, expresses disparaging options of women, gays and lesbians, Jews, blacks and other minorities, whites, and other social categories. Should the act of scrawling such graffiti be included in the hate crime accounting system and trigger extra punishment. Should hate crimes include the use of racist, sexist, homophobic, be combined with in your face shouting, gesturing, and threatening conduct that occurs all too often in the context of arguments and fights on playgrounds, streets, and in the