Penalties on Hate Crimes

    There are many people that believe there should be harsher penalties for hate crimes.  Others believe that what our legal system does serve justice to the victims of hate crimes.  For instance the beating of Rodney King could be semi viewed as a hate crime when he was brutally beat by four police officers and received a settlement of 1 million dollars in the early 1990s. There are many horrendous cases that the public hear everyday about individual hate crimes done on other human beings. For example: "After being robbed and beaten, Matthew Shepard, a gay student in Wyoming, was tied like a scarecrow to a wooden fence and left to die. He did" (Wellman, 2006, p.62).  These stories that are published in our newspaper each day really makes me want to reevaluate if America has truly grown out of its era of intolerance.
           What most people do not know is that their are strict guidelines on what qualifies as a hate crime. "In order for an offense to qualify as a hate crime, the perpetrator must choose the victim (at least in part) because of her membership in the targeted group" (Wellman, 2006, p.63).  It has to clearly show that the crime was done out of hate for the other individual.  This is where in the courtroom the situation can get sticky when you try to charge the perpetrator with a hate crime.  The overall public, however, want their to be more done for the punishment of specific crimes.  "Although national polls that have been conducted in recent years uncovered general support for hate crime laws, there is no evidence that this support translates into support for the actual sentence enhancements,mandatory minimums, and others tools that are mandated under such laws" (Cohen & Steen,2004,p.1-2).  If the overall public is demanding more attention be brought to this maybe if some people voice their opinions the government will listen.
           There is many complexities over the hate.  Should the individual be blamed if he has prejudice against somebody or should it be more geared towards the actual organizations geared towards hate.  "Individuals who commit hate crimes often appear to have internalized scapegoating frames and narratives, but seldom are they members of organized supremacist groups" (Berlet,2003-2004,p.145).  This is true, but most of the time the individuals are brought up from someone that teaches them that hatred and those individuals could belong to supremacist groups, so they are indirectly affected.  "

We need to place the study of organized hate groups in the context of the larger study of systems of oppression that generate hate" (Berlet,2003-2004,p.145).  I agree with this statement, but overall there needs to be more looked into with the consequences of committing hate crimes, rather than us Americans trying to cease that they no longer exist. 

References:

Wellman, C. (2006). A defense of stiffer penalties for hate crimes . Hypatia, 21(1), 62-63.


Cohen, M, & Steen, S. (2004). Assessing the public's demand for hate crime penalties. Justice Quarterly, 21(1), 1-2.


Berlet, C. (2003-2004). Hate, oppression, repression, and the apocalyptic style: facing complex questions and challenges . Journal of Hate Studies, 3(1), 145.