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Hate Crime in Today's World

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Hate Crime in Today's World
Hate Crime and Its Past Kristina Kay Gonzales COM/172 February 14, 2012 Dave Kubel Hate Crime and Its Past “Federal law defines a hate crime as whenever the victim is attacked on the basis of his or her race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender; hate offenses are directed against members of a particular group simply because of their membership in that group” (Levin & McDebitt, 1993). Hate crimes have been around for far too long. The first hate crime that was ever documented was in 1922, and that was just the first time that it was documented. Hate crimes were most likely going on long before this incident took place in Louisiana. The FBI encountered a rising in the Ku Klux Klan; it was a white supremacies movement. Two people were kidnapped and murdered and there were thousands of other people who received threats. The Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups committed thousands and thousands of hate crimes sense 1922. “Just in the last couple months, three men were indicated in New Mexico for assaulting a disabled minority. Another man was sentenced for putting a hangman noose on the front door of a minority’s house in Louisiana. In Massachusetts another man was sentenced for burning a predominantly African American church” (Two Men Sentenced for Racially-Motivated Assault, 2012). There are hundreds more stories just like these going on every day. Just because people do not hear about hate crimes as often as they used to, does not mean that they are not still happening. “Among the single-bias hate crimes incidents in 2009, there were 4,057 victims of racially motivated hate crimes” (US Department of Justice, 2009). Racially motivated hate crimes have the highest statistic rate in 2009. “Since 1990 hate crimes have consistently stayed the same and have ranged between 5500 and 8500” Taylor, J. (2001). There are so many crimes do not get reported

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