Hate Crimes, Essay Example

Wisconsin v Mitchell (1993) states, “If a person intentionally selects the person or property of which the crime is committed or damaged because of race, religion, color or disability the penalties for the crime increase by statute and virtue of the United States Supreme Court.” The United States is successful for one of the most multicultural nations amongst all other melting pots in the world. Why would they want to risk their character and reputation and let hate crimes go unpunished? American history has been blighted by anti-racial prejudices which have been overcome by the Civil Rights Movement and other human rights petitions to the courts. “Crimes of hatred and prejudice—from lynching’s to cross burnings to vandalism of synagogues—are a sad fact of American history, but the term “hate crime” did not enter the nation’s vocabulary until the 1980s, when emerging hate groups like the Skinheads launched a wave of bias-related crime.” (“Hate Crime”). To leave any of these unturned would be an infringement to people’s inalienable rights and an injustice to society. Why does the law hold people to a higher accountability for hate crimes? The reason the court holds people to a higher accountability is because it is a demarcation against the rights afforded under the United States Constitution particularly the First Amendment rights where no one should be prejudiced based on color, religion, race or ethnic background.

Representative John Conyers of Michigan and Barbara Kennelly of Connecticut “coined the terminology hate crime in 1985 when they co-sponsored a bill called Hate Crime Statistics Act.” The bill sought to punish those who were motivated to kill motivated by “racial, religious and ethnic prejudices.” (Jacobs & Potter, 1998). Though the 1989 issue of the U.S. News and World Report thought differently when it stated, “Why should the courts be in the business of judging these misty matters? If the skulls of all Americans are equally valuable because we are a democracy why not gives everyone the same sentence for cracking any cranium at all.” (Jacobs & Potter,  It should be noted that hate crime is also denoted as a ‘bias’ crime and that is why it is held to a higher standard during sentencing in the courts.

References

Wisconsin v Mitchell 508 U.S. 476 (1993)

Jacobs, J. and Potter, K. Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics Retrieved June 15, 2010 from, http://books.google.com/books?id=JRgUBNEvzuwC&dq=hate+crimes&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Hate Crime (2008) Retrieved June 15, 2010 from, http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/civilrights/hate.htm