Arguments Against Hate Crimes

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A hate crime is a crime committed due to the victim’s classified characteristic: religion, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or other profound grouping (Gerstenfeld, 2015). Hate crimes have been around since the beginning of mankind, but in recent decades the United States legal system has put forth greater effort to understand, recognize, and put an increased effort into punishing those who target protected groups in an effort to guarantee citizens freedoms that are clearly defined in the U.S. Constitution. This is essay will discuss viewpoints for/against hate crime laws and why penalties have been enhanced by the justice system to curb these acts of discrimination. In 1968, Congress elected to expanded on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to make it a federally prosecutable crime for anyone to …show more content…
This takes us back to intent – the same reason why people are charged with homicide versus murder, the same reason why we have different degrees of misdemeanors and felonies – intent. The federal government has allowed states to adopt, to their own limitations, the level of perceived hate crimes that states are willing to observe. In 2009, President Obama signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which allows the Department of Justice to investigate, or aid, in prosecution of hate crimes, at the request of state or local authorities, if requested or are unwilling to properly investigate or prosecute a hate crime (Larner, 2010). Thus proving that states need to increase the awareness of hate crime related acts and prosecute thoroughly or federal authorities will step in to see that justice is served correctly, the time of the good ole boys days are over. Even being associated with a hate group - can add to sentencing, regardless of the crime committed as the association is clear indication of one thought and