Hate Crimes

Before getting in to details of hate crimes, it is imperative to understand hate crimes from the definition although it has many definitions. For easy understanding, hate crimes is any offense based on the disability, race, sexuality, religion and values of the victims. Hate crimes has many angles as it depends entirely on who or the purpose of the hate crime such as, sentencing, reporting and conceptual purpose. This paper is going to discuss hate crimes and the types of hate crimes.

The first type of hate crime is the racial hate crime. Racial hate crime is the most dominant in the public order offenses in terms of the numbers and statistic as many people fall victims of this hate crime. For example, in the United Kingdom, the number of racial hate crimes recorded between 2010 and 2011 dropped drastically to 31486 as compared to 2006, which was at 42,554. This drop was due to much campaign and civic education by the government to the people and the pressure from the international communities. The racial hate crime is so common, since it does not cause physical harm to the victims but it has mental and emotional damage to the victims.

Another type of hate crime is the sexual orientation and gender. People in the society today are declaring their sexual orientation as gay, lesbian or straight. However, other people do not like to have their sexual orientation known which might lead to confusion of a persons' sexuality. Hate crime against sexuality arises when a victim is mistaken as one who belongs to a given sexual orientation, which is against his or her actual sexual orientation. In 2009 and 2010, sexual orientation crimes rose from 312 to 357 offenses. This increase was due to the varying changes in definitions and incidences by people as people realized the development of the sexual and gender hate crimes.

Finally, the disability hate crime is another category of hate crime. This hate crime varies as it depends entirely on definition of the disability. People with mental impairment, physical disability or visual impairment are the victims of this hate crime as they consistently face stigmatization from the society.

Hate crimes has adverse effects on its victims and sometimes can lead to death of the victims if the victims do not get help. Educating the people on hate crimes is important, as it will help reduce stigmatization and prevalence of the crime, since people will be aware of hate crime and its consequences.