Hate Crimes: The Causes and Factors Hindering the Eradication (Essay Sample)

Name
Professor
Subject
Date
Hate Crimes
Introduction:
A hate crime is any offense motivated by a bias illustrated by an offender focusing on specific targets due to their presumed association to particular racial populations or social groups. The primary motivators of hate crimes are disability, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, religion, or physical outlook. In 2012, race or ethnicity was the primary cause of hate crimes as depicted in many police reports, thus depicting its sensitive nature. Additionally, during the last ten years, sexual orientation has intensified hate crimes with a 30% increase which is about one thousand crimes per year (Kunal et al.). However, the major concern with hate crimes is that a significant proportion of them go unreported in the United States regardless of their magnitude and severity.
Ideally, hate crimes have been challenging to halt due to many being underreported. As a result, society is not sensitized to their impacts while victims of these crimes languish secretly. However, there are many avenues where hate crimes can be reported, such as in learning institutions, thus handling them before they can escalate to higher levels with more severe consequences. Hate crimes such as hate speech raise the issue of community safety concerning freedom of speech (Paterson 994-1010). Nonetheless, even though everyone has the right to their opinion, exercising this freedom can be unlawful if it violates other people’s rights. Therefore, limits should be set to distinguish freedom of speech from hate speech to uphold community safety. As a result, people can be held accountable for their words, thereby making them cautious of their words' impacts on others