Responses to Hate Crimes (Research Paper Sample)

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Response to Hate Crimes
Hate crimes are destructive and distressing events both for the community and the victims in which they affect. Hate crime refers a crime motivated by an offender’s bias against a group or an individual’s race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, religion, or disability. Definitions of hate crimes vary; however, the federal definition of hate crimes deals with civil right violations based on 18 U.S.C. Section 245. The definitions of crimes often entail not only crimes against groups or a person, but also a criminal offense against property like vandalism or arson especially committed to communities or places of worship (Sullivan 40). The effect of hate crime (bias-motivated crime) is something extending beyond the emotional and physical suffering experienced by the victims to include other individuals in the targeted group. Hate crimes often trigger vulnerability of the victims including the target group members; as a result, causes distress for all members of the community. This paper examines historical injustices related to hate crimes and aims to evaluate significant tools for developing an efficient response to hate crimes occurring in the community.
Historical Injustices Related To Hate Crimes
Hate crime is a horrible event in the society. Newton says that the dragging death of James Byrd in Japers during 1998, the 1993 murder of Brandon Teena in Nebraska, the death of Gwen Araujo are not unforgotten events (3). They were eruptions of intolerance in the society. American history is marked with widespread bias against individuals and groups due to their sexual orientation, identity, religion, race, disability and other differences.
The racially motivated murder of James Byrd shocked the country, causing protests and social tension. The black man (Byrd) was dragged to death from the back of a pickup motor vehicle to a remote area of Texas. The residents of the region of Jasper town discovered the broken body of Byrd. The activity was Klan and racist motivated incident. As he approached home of his parent house after midnight, Byrd was attacked by three men who took him to a jungle where he was fatally beaten, chained at the back of the motor vehicle and dragged at a distant of two miles. The murder was known as one of the fatal killings seen in America. Three white racists, who were responsible for the murder, were charged in court and prosecuted (Perry, Levin, Iganski, Blazak and Lawrence 50). These men had racist tattoos and were affiliated to Ku Klux Klan supporters; investigators were convinced that that the murder was racially motivated. Consequently, the brutal death of Byrd led to the enactment of a Texas hate crimes law.
Another murder incident was the fate of Brandon Teena; she was a transman who was beaten, raped and brutally murdered. She was born female, but she had a feeling of manhood inside her. She changed her name and started calling and identifying herself as Brandon Teena when she was 20. She started putting sock in her pants, which transformed her image and began dating local girls using her voice to appear that she was a boy; she as a transgender. Her fate began when she was brutally raped and assaulted by two men. She presented the rape case to the law enforcement authority agents. However, police interrogation was tough on her, wanting to know why she was dressing like a man and why she was socializing with men. Eventually, she did not finish the appointment of police follow-ups since she felt she was mistreated. Later, the two men broke into Lisa Lambert’s home where Brandon was living and brutally stabbed and shot her (Petrosino 17). The prosecutor ruling in her case claimed that the conspiracy to murder Brandon was related to the plot to rape her since she was female who dressed like a man. The two criminals were given life imprisonment to pay for their crime.
Besides that, Gwen Arauja was an American teenage trans-woman who was killed in Newark. Two men, who were known to have committed the crime, had been having sexual intimacy with Gwen. They strangled and beat her after realizing that she was transgender. Both men were prosecuted for murder and committed a hate crime. Newton presents that on the first anniversary of Araujo’s killing, Horizons Foundation developed the Gwen Araujo Memorial Fund to promote transgender education and understanding of transgender people (7).
The death of Mathew Shepard (a student of the University of Wyoming) also shocked the country. He was found fatally beaten, tied to a fence and left to die. After 18 hours he was found and taken to hospital, but after five days he died. Shortly after the brutal attack, two men were arrested and charged for killing Shepard. The investigation of media coverage found out that Shepard’s sexual orientation contributed to his killing. Since Shepard was a gay, the two men murdered him because they had hatred against gay sentiment. The two men were given life imprisonment. Later, the murders of both Mathew Shepard and Brandon Teena pushed for the increased lobbying and advocacy for hate-crime laws in America. Aaronson opines that the murders of James Byrd and Mathew Shepard led to the passage of Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which is commonly identified as the Mathew Sheppard Act (205). President Obama signed the bill in October 2009, which was a response to the killings of James Byrd and Mathew Shepard. The law expanded the United States federal hate-crime law1969 to address crimes motivated by victim’s perceived or real gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or gender.
Apart from that, the death of Harvey Milk was related to anti-gay sentiments. Milk was one of the first gays to serve an elected office in 1977. He was also a member serving as one of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors together with Dan White. Nevertheless, the following year, he met his tragic death. White and Milk became enemies when White was the only supervisor who opposed Milk’s gay-right bill. While Milk’s advocacy in the gay right movement made him became a national icon, White’s career dissatisfaction made more depressed (Jenness and Grattet 120). White opted to resign from his seat because he thought supervisory salary was inadequate to support his family.
Progressive mayor George Moscone considered to reappointing White if he decided to return to work. But later when White wanted to be reappointed to his position, Moscone declined reinstating him because of Milk’s influence that White’s position should be filled with a board member who is more liberal. White was convinced the Milk and Moscone were stumbling block towards his success, and consequently he decided to murder them. White, who was caught shortly after he committed the killings, pleaded that was incapacitated due to the stress he had over the loss of his job. His “incapacitated defense” seemed successful, and during 1979, he was charged for guilty of voluntary, but not for murder. However, the widespread public protests in California compelled the jury to nullify “the incapacitated defense”. More views that following the killings, demonstrations and riots occurred in the city of Francisco to mourn the loss of two respected and prominent civic leaders (174). White was charged and given five-year jail term. He was unable to lead his normal life upon his release, and eventually he committed suicide in 1986.
Important Tools for Responses to Hate Crimes
It has been seen how the national government through criminal justice system and law enforcement authorities respond to the murders of James Byrd, Brandon Teena, Gwen Arauja, Mathew Shepard and Harvey Milk. If such hate crimes were unchecked, they could have led to rising of social tensions between different groups to ruin communities (Lawrence 253). What makes hate crimes different from other crimes is that it is a bias-motivated crime against an individual’s or a group’s identity.
How to respond to hate crimes is a vital tool. I...