Love Vs Hate Crimes

Nelson Mandela once said, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” What is it that we show the whole world when we accept a crime so vicious in nature that they are seen as hate crimes? The United States is only 5% of the world’s population, but we have 25% of the world’s prisoners. This is very unfortunate for us all, and a very true reality. It’s a very clear picture that the symbol we show the world, is that we do not tolerate crime. When it comes to hate crimes though, they are not always so black and white and things
I just want to share my findings because really, I am just a mother that like any other parent worries about the world she brought her children into. I feel that we do learn to hate, and I am not for having the highest prisoner rate in the world and believe in rehabilitation but I want to keep us aware of our laws on hate crimes. In any learning strategies, research has shown that having education earlier on in life, it will stick better and longer. We are responsible for how we raise our children in this world. This country would be way less scary place to raise our children if we continue to not accept hate and the crimes that happen when a group or a person goes too far with their bias believes. I want to not only share my research but give some history. When we do not understand, what is going on around our own communities we fail as a whole. Bringing a little more awareness on hate crimes nationally and locally keeps us informed and better educated on things we might be able to help with, hate crimes continue to happen and often over looked we must not allow hate to be so easily accepted to the point where they over power what is right, for everyone. Hate crimes history has so many back grounds, I don’t feel I will be able to cover it all, like The Japanese
Per the Unitized States Department of Justice web site, it describes the first hate crime statute as, “The 1968 statute made it a crime to use, or threaten to use, force to willfully interfere with any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin and because the person is participating in a federally protected activity, such as public education, employment, jury service, travel, or the enjoyment of public accommodations, or helping another person to do so.” Back then there was nothing about sexuality or sexual orientation. Between 1989 to 1990 the U.S. Senate passes the Hate Crimes Statistics act. It would require the Department of Justice to collect and publish data about crimes motivated by hatred based on race, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Even though there had been so many other crimes against minorities only in 1990 did the United States decide and begin to keep track of these hateful crimes. Although these crimes where, as it seemed being kept track of there was no real movement. In 1993, the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act is added as an amendment to the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. It is later enacted, this law would allow judges to enforce greater punishments on those that were convicted of a hate crime, including hate crimes based on gender, disability and sexual orientation that occur in national parks and on other federal property. (The Human