Speech On Hate Crimes

Hate Crime

The Anti-Defamation League reported that, according to the FBI statistics, “There was almost one hate crime in America in every hour of every day in 2007,” which added up to “a total of more than 7,600 reported bias-motivated incidents” (“An Introduction to Hate Crime Laws”). A hate crime is a biased motivated physical act against a victim’s “race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or national origin” (“Hate Crimes Overview”). Hate speech insights hate crime by discriminating against its victims either by race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or national origin in a verbal form. Hate crime laws are in many countries, but laws against hate speech are not in the United States (“Preventing and Responding to Hate Crimes”).

Many people will argue that restricting hate speech is a violation of the First Amendment. South Carolina does not have hate crime laws in their books. Crime committed against person or persons are considered as a civil rights violation. Often Individuals that commit hate crimes are almost never convicted because they either commit suicide or killed during apprehension by police. The government does not currently punish people for hate speech, just for hate crimes (“An Introduction to Hate Crime”). The issue with this is that “once a climate of hate is created; a single incident…can trigger a wave of hate crimes” (“Hate Crimes Overview”). When a hate crime is committed, it not only affects the victim, but it also affects individuals who are affiliated with the victim and the community (“Hate Crimes

NGOs have contacted authors and owners of websites and requested that they remove hate sites and racial slangs from online. (“Preventing and Responding to Hate Crimes”). NGOs inform young people about the dangers of participating in hate crimes online and teach them to report information to the appropriate governing agencies. This act of taking back the power of individuals and groups supporting hate and giving it back to regular citizens is powerful and can lead to a positive change in the world (“Preventing Hate Crimes”). A benefit of the police and the community working together gives the message that hate is not ok. (“Preventing and Responding to Hate Crimes”). If the policing agency should fail to follow procedure for reporting information on a hate crime to a regional or national officer it causes distrust and further perpetuate mistrust in a community. (“Preventing and Responding to Hate Crimes”). Some efforts to teach the police about hate crimes include offering sensitivity classes (“10 ways to stop the hate”), and task force training (“Preventing and Responding to Hate