Why do they say hate crimes when a certain person from a certain group is the target of a crime?

Question

Shouldn`t all crimes be viewed as such? For when you are intentionally hurting a person in anyway hate has got to be rooted deep down inside the criminal. I just think all horrific crimes should be dealt with the same and prison sentences or death penalties should all be handed out equally. For all victims are equal in thier pain suffering and healing no matter what race, religion,gay or straight. Hate is hate and a crime against another person is still a crime.So why is it a harsher punishment if it`s viewed a hate crime? It`s time people started taking a stand and get everyone to understand hate is hate and crime is crime make stiffer penalties for all .

Answer 1

Not all criminals are motivated by hatred. Sociopaths, for instance, are indifferent to the effects of their actions on other people. Many crimes are not targeted and the victim is described as being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or the premises attacked just happened to be vulnerable so that an opportunistic burglar could take advantage of the situation. Crime is such a broad area of the law and one cannot generalise as to motivation. Some criminals, deep down, hate themselves.

A hate crime, on the other hand, is one which is carried out purely because the other person is of a certain race or orientation. It is fuelled by a passionate hatred of what the victim represents. It is, on a smaller scale, the kind of action and attitude which we have so often deplored in certain overseas countries, when the hatred of one dictator has had far reaching consequences, which is possibly why society feels it has to show its abhorrence of it.

Answer 2

I see where you are coming from. If someone commits a crime towards another person it must be out of hate, or why else would they do it? Having said that the simple truth is that not all crimes are hate based. Some crimes are based on power, some on greed, some out of stupidity. Hate crimes are called that because the primary driving force is hate for that person based on a group they are in. It is pure hate driving the crime. These crimes should definately be persecuted higher because it promotes violence just because you don't agree with someones lifestyle.

Also stiffer penalties for all won't solve the problem of crime.
America already has close to twice the rate of prisoners than any other nation. We need to solve the underlying problems that cause these crimes such as oppression. We need prevention and treatment programs not more prisons!!!

Answer 3

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that when a white person attacks a black person it is always called a hate crime. If that is what you think, then you are wrong. In order for the attack to be called a hate crime, there has to be some evidence that the attack was motivated by racial animosity. For example, one case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court over a dozen years ago concerned a group of black teenagers who savagely attacked and severely injured a white teenager. The attackers were charged with a hate crime and were given a longer jail sentence once convicted based on the fact of what the black teens had said to one another just before they attacked the white teen. Because they said that they wanted to attack the victim BECAUSE he was white, that was how the trial court deemed that it was a hate crime.

As other people above have pointed out, it is wrong to assume that all crimes are committed for the same reasons and that they can all be summed up as "hate."

Answer 4

Because hate and ingnorance are associated with racism and discrimination.

Race crime? Discimination crime? They had to call it something. It in no way lessens the affects of other crimes on society. It's just a word. Also, hate crimes are on the rise with illegal immigration, gays rallying for marriage, African Americans now have a presidential candidate, etc...

We have not been fighting for centuries to abolish murder but we have to abolish slavery and civil rights. This cuts to the very core of what the United States was founded upon:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." - Lincoln

Sometimes it's having some sense of equality that keeps us from preying on or victimizing each other.

Answer 5

you would ask a question like that like in alaska there are issues such as local hire, governments that are corrupted like local board members that use corporations for equipment and family needs and they don't think the public need jobs to provide for family, they only think that they need it without others that need the income to provide for the family and some families that end up using the illegal ways just to provide what the kids need and they do stuff that the public totally disagrees with what the system agrees with and end up in jail for trying to provide for the kids or family, not easy living in conditions that limits your need for the family and education.

Answer 6

confident it is and a lots of hate speeches have led to stealing beating up people who have not have been given any concept what's occurring. it rather is form of Cowardly whilst a Mob assaults harmless electorate and breaks abode windows to thieve stuff, and it is Terrorizing and Stealing.

Answer 7

It is actually quite simple. They were targeted because they were black, Chinese, female, Jewish. Other crimes are crimes of opportunity or random acts of violence.