“Can we… can we all get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?” stated Rodney King in a press conference following the riots of 1992. Thirty Years ago, Rodney King, an African-American man was caught on camera being acquitted of a savage beating by four policemen - three who were white. The four policemen were found innocent on all charges except for one assault charge; hours after the verdict the city of Los Angeles burst out in flames. Fury bottled in from years of racial and economic inequality in the city exploded. It ignited a national conversation about racial and economic disparity and police use of force that continues. Thirty years later, hate crimes are still a prevalent problem - one that continuously becomes worse. 

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, hate crimes are defined as a violent crime committed in order to instill fear or harm the individual solely based on their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and other minority group status. After the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act in 1968, the Department of Justice began to prosecute federal hate crimes. Currently, in the United States, there is a hate crime law enforced at a federal level, however, it is up to the states to enforce them in any way they deem fit. For example, California’s hate crime laws protect race, national origin, sexual orientation, religion, gender, and disability. While on the other hand, Arkansas only protects one of these rights under their state hate crime law: religion (US Department of Justice, 2022). And while these crimes are being prosecuted in the status quo, hate crimes are generally hard to prosecute as the main aspect to prove is the intent the perpetrator carries while committing the crime (Lopez, 2017). However, as humans, it’s hard to know what is truly happening in the mind of others. If the offender were to say they weren’t motivated by any of the factors involved in a hate crime, others have no way to prove the statement wrong. It is for this reason there is a desperate need for hate crimes to result in a more severe punishment rather than a normal crime. 

Today, the ideology that the criminal justice system holds is that punishment is “justified in terms of deterrence, retribution, or incapacitation. The deterrence position maintains that if the offender is punished, not only the offender by also those who see his example are deterred from further offenses” (Raymond, 1979). Therefore, the stakes are raised so dramatically when considering a hate crime because members of the targeted group identify with the victim. Each person in the group is personally affected by the crime and has an incentivized interest in seeing justice done. In comparison to a ‘normal’ crime that would only interest the individual and perhaps their friends and family, a hate crime has an entire group personally invested in the situation (Wellman, 2006). Rodney King and the following riots is an example of this anomaly. One did not have to be a friend or family of King, nor did they have to be an African-American living in Southern California to feel infuriated by the decision of the jury. However, it was those of African-American descent that were personally degraded by the beating and the verdict itself. “The oppression of violence consists not only in direct victimization, but in the daily knowledge shared by all members of the oppressed groups that are liable to violation…Just living under such a threat… deprives the oppressed of freedom and dignity…” (Young, 1990). Thus, hate crimes cause so much fear and humiliation that society must account for not only the victim, but secondary victims as well. In order to do so, an ordinary criminal punishment is simply not enough to affirm all those who have been degraded. 

There is an even greater incentive to take action against hate crimes as their rates have increased by 44% in 2021, in the United States alone (Tillman 2022). During the pandemic, transphobic attacks rose in the United Kingdom - reports at least 14,670 homophobic hate crime offenses in just the first eight months of 2021. In the United Kingdom, sexual orientation hate crimes have been on the rise for the past three years (Chao 2021). Following the coronavirus pandemic, hate crimes against Asian Americans have continuously increased each year, eventually reaching a stagnant percent of 342% compared to the prior years. Additionally, law enforcement has reported that in 2020 alone, the majority of race-related attacks targeted the African American community, jumping the already high percentage by 63% (Jones 2021).

The state-to-state approach for hate crimes is somewhat logical because they are generally harder to prosecute due to the multifaceted nature tied to intent and physical environment (psychologically and socially). Oftentimes the offender of the hate crime will be a stranger rather than a family member or an acquaintance; which is the case for most other crimes. As a result, the intent of a hate crime is harder to understand as there is no relationship between the victim and perpetrator allowing for the offender to walk free. However, psychologically, human beings feel the need to categorize certain things into different groups, which is the root cause of any hate crime. Being part of a group allows for the satisfaction of belonging to a set of people that support individuals. Therefore, the individual is able to define their social identity. Furthermore, it is easy to get used to the similarities the group has within each individual part of it causing ingroup bias: favoritism toward the individual’s own group or the degradation of another set of people (Kendra, 2016). Group thinking also creates a stronger ‘us v. them’ point of view which eventually leads to prejudice and ultimately an action based on the prejudice. Hate crimes ultimately happen because of a bias, but it’s generally more complicated than a simple explanation as the individual likely completed the crime to seek approval from their social tribe.

Sherri Gordon and Steven Gans identify four different types of intent that causes a hate crime to happen: thrill-seeking, defensive, retaliatory, and mission offenders. Thrill-seeking offenders generally express their hostility towards a wide variety of groups. Their main motivators tend to simply be the excitement of committing such an act. Many times thrill-seeking offenders are groups of teenagers seeking to be accepted by their peers as well as to gain a sense of superiority over the victim (Levin, 2014).  However, while these are the most common types of offenders, they are not solely motivated by hate. Instead, it is more the feeling of excitement and power they get through committing a hate crime. Therefore, if the societal response to the act is one that condemns the behavior, the offenders are most likely to be deterred from repeating the crime again. The next most common type of hate crime offenders are those that are defensive which means they are committing the crime in order to protect their group against the perceived threat from an ‘outsider.’ Most notably, these offenders have a higher sense of entitlement or being above another group, therefore, needing to protect their ‘kind’ from another they view as inferior. Retaliatory offenders categorize 8% of the offenders and are most likely to commit a hate crime when they feel as if their group has been harmed by an outside group (Levin, 2014).  For example, after the bombing of 9/11, a “trigger effect” of hate crimes towards Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindu groups has increased and become more widespread. It is incredibly important to note that retaliatory offenders feel justified in committing a hate crime against others because they did not strike first. This is most common when the perpetrator is also from another minority group. Lastly, mission offenders are the least common offenders, but also the most dangerous hate crime perpetrators. Mission offenders’ main motive succumb to bigotry and make it their life mission to get rid of all the evil in the world - evil being the outside groups. These offenders will most likely be in an organized ‘hate group’ - motivated by the ideology of hate - instead of acting as individuals. Because these groups solely rely on the hatred they have against the ‘outside’ groups, offenders foster an even more hostile environment that justifies the offenses committed.

There is also a notable risk of oversimplifying the types of offenders as not all hate crimes will fall under these 4 categories. The act of burying feelings such as shame, disgust, and guilt could also contribute to an offender committing a hate crime; an act that is not always controllable but instead may rather be a sudden outburst (Robert, 2013). Perpetrators see themselves as “weak, disregarded, unfairly treated and made to feel small” in comparison to their victims (Ray, 2004). This is also known as the “humiliation theory” states that the majority of men who commit homophobic hate crimes are not homophobic but rather struggling with their own sexuality. The offenders do not hate those part of the LGBTQ+ community, however, they are in fear that others will think they are homosexual. In cases such as these it is not hate that is the primary motive for committing the crime, instead the act “...expresses culturally pervasive bias, hostility, or prejudice…” towards a certain community (Robert, 2013). Furthermore, most hate crimes involve some form of splitting and projection; they break down groups - black people, gay people, immigrants, and the disabled - as different, lacking, or threatening, which changes the “course” of how they project themselves. These internal conflicts explain why someone who is psychologically impaired could snap to commit what is viewed as a hate crime. While hate crimes can not simply be broken down into different groups and reasons because of the complexity of the topic, it is often because of these types that hate crimes tend to occur. 

Although hate crimes are multifaceted problems it is not difficult to notice the extreme extent of violence compared to ‘normal’ crimes. The most salient part about hate crimes emphasizes that hate crimes are more likely to involve a physical assault. Historically, only 11% of ‘normal’ crimes involve physical assault while more than one-third of all hate crimes are reported with some relation to physical assaults. Hate crime experts report that offenders usually use weapons such as bats, box cutters, and bricks often referred to as “ imprecise weapons of opportunity” (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1997).  As a result of these weapons, hate crimes tend to be more brutal and result in excessively more injuries than a common criminal attack. The solution to such violence is to punish the offenders to a more severe extent than compared to a similar crime with different motives. After all, the motive and intent determine the severity of the punishment. This is evident in the current legal system, especially with murders. There are different degrees of murder (first, second, and third) all resulting in different sentencing. First-degree murder is any murder premeditated and thought out by the offender - having the intent of killing the victim. Second-degree murder is done without any premeditation. Third-degree murder falls between manslaughter and murder which is also done without any intention. Out of these three, first-degree murder is the most serious and punished because intent plays a role in the murder. Likewise, hate crimes should be punished to a more severe extent compared to crimes with different motives because of the intent behind the crime. 

In conclusion, the world continues to become more diverse; there is ultimately no place for hate simply depending on an unchangeable identity. If the world continues to allow hate crimes to continue, it will be no different than the 19th century where slavery was acceptable, where women were always inferior, and where the only person who could thrive was a white male. To avoid this, we need to punish hate crimes to a harsher extent than a ‘normal’ crime, so that our society can advance forward.

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