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Crime is a global content that people try to fight and find ways to keep it from happening.
While police and prisons are ways to control this issue, crime keeps happening every day
worldwide. Persons around the world have individual explanations of crime and can believe
various acts to be a crime. Nevertheless, general crime is considered a violation of the law. Crimes
can be shared to the public as easy as picking up the morning paper, While reading news of
murders, kidnappings and rapes, hold-ups of trains and hijackings of planes, and drugs. All this can
make an individual question if crime is dissociable from civilized life.
One form of crime which is relevant in todays society is Hate Crime. Hate crime is when a
victim is targeted because of the victim's real or perceived group membership. Hate crimes are
criminal activities intentional to harm or frighten people because of their race, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, religion, or other minority group status. Some viewed the crucifixion of Jesus as the
first hate crime. Jesus was executed by the Romans because of religious grounds they didnt concur
with. This view is for those who are more into the religious belief, on the contrary there is no way
to chance what became the actualized root of hate crimes.
In 1900s the hate crime rate was at a high because of race. African Americans were being
lynched due to Caucasian people refusing to see them as their equivalents. The whites during this
time went through with dangerous actions to frighten the blacks by forming the Klu Klux Klan
otherwise known as the KKK. The murder of Emmet Till is an example. Emmet Till was a 14-year-
old boy that was beaten and killed by two white men because of his race. (Emmit Till bio, 2014)

Hate crimes have two important elements that are widely accepted: first, it includes actions
that are already defined as illegal in the state or federal statutes. Second, it requires that a religious,
ethnic racial or some other identified difference between the victim and the perpetrator play a big
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part in the criminal act (Levin & McDevitt, 2008). Possibly one of the better-known cases
pertaining to racial unfriendliness is that of Rodney King. He was an African American from Los
Angeles, California, caught up in a dangerous high-speed pursuit with the Los Angeles Police
Department in 1991. At the end of the chase King was shot with a stun gun and then beaten by
numerous police officers, all of whom were white and got away with it scott free. This was all
caught on tape, and then televised on all networks around the United States.
This started one of the largest riots in American history. Several people from California
began to show their anger towards the decision in Rodney Kings case. People began looting,
committing arson, and even brutally fighting other citizens. The riot lasted for five days. The death
toll was fifty-eight. Thousands of people were arrested and more than a billion dollars in property
damage occurred. All of this occurred in reaction to a hate crime, white police officers brutally
beating a black man and then getting away with it. A year later, in 1993, two of the four officers
were found guilty of police brutality. The other two officers were acquitted. (Rupesinghe)
Some hate crimes are reasoned to be a defensive mechanism. The crimes are ignited by a
displeasing event. The offenders of defensive hate crimes feel they are in some manner protecting
themselves or others against strangers or unwelcomed persons. The wrong doers feel that the
existence of associates of some other group jeopardizes their community or their way of life.
Hence, the offenders feel that it is their duty to do something to justify the attacks. For instance the
attacks of September 11, 2001.
Hate crimes are often message crimes. They serve to send a message to members of a
certain group that they are not welcome in a neighborhood, school, community, etc. This could be
demonstrated in property damage or attacks on some members of the group. (Cheng & Ices) After
the attacks on September 11, 2001, examples of defensive hate crimes could be seen throughout the
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United States. Some people felt that the presence of Middle Easterners, regardless of their origin
or affiliation with any possible terrorist groups, were a threat to the safety of America.
Consequently, attackers rationalized that it was for the good of the nation to get rid of these so-
called intruders. (Levin and McDevitt)
For the years to come many including myself wish for hate crimes to end, but unfortunately
in my opinion it will not. Even if we do by coming together as an society we still have terrorists to
worry about and individual who do not mean well at all, like racist. It is sad to say that we will in a
world of hate. Hopefully am wrong and maybe one day crime wouldnt be so bad especially within
the society we live in.











References
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Levin, J., & McDevitt, J. (2002). Hate crimes revisited: Americas war against those who are different.
Boulder, CO: Westview.
Rupesinghe, Kumar. The Culture of Violence. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1994.
Cheng, W., Ickes, W., & Kenworthy, J. (n.d.). The phenomenon of hate crimes in the United
States. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43(4), 761-794
Emmett Louis Till. (2014). The Biography.com website.
http://www.biography.com/people/emmett-till-507515.