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Hate Crimes Essay

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Hate Crimes

Grace Davis
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University
CRJ 419: International Terrorism
January 29, 2023

A hate crime is a criminal at that is motivated by one’s prejudice and bias against another, this can be based on one’s ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and or disability (Learn about hate crimes, 2022). These perpetrators are motivated from their own distaste for a certain individual or the group they identify with or belong to. Hate crime are described as criminal offenses that first involves an action that is illegal, second has a specific motive behind the drive of the crime, and third there is no specific identified groups that hate crimes …show more content…

When identifying the motivations and characteristics of hate crime offenders we can look at the Bias Incidents and Actors Study, within this multi-method project the behaviors of a sample of individuals who have committed hate crimes within the United States is explored. The study shows data ranging from 1990- 2018, we see that the number one motivator by a large lead was based off race/ethnicity/nationality, followed by sexual orientation/gender, and then religion (Motivations and Characteristics of Hate Crime Offenders, 2020). When examining these bias crime offenders, it is interesting to learn that they “are diverse in terms of demographic and background characteristics” (Motivations and Characteristics of Hate Crime Offenders, …show more content…

These instances of hate crimes are committed because an offender is seeking excitement, they want to have fun but at the expense of someone else. Through the thrill-seeking act these offenders feel a sense of control, they may in their person lives feel a lack of importance or that they have no control so partaking in a hate crime fuels their fire. The next form of hate crime is defensive hate crimes, these offenders rationalize their behavior as though they are doing it as a means of protection. They may find a certain group triggering and take a defensive stance against them, though this group may not present any real harm or danger to the offender. The third type of hate crime is retaliatory hate crime, these “occur as a reaction to a perceived hate crime” (Levin & McDevitt, 2008). The assault may not have even occurred, all that matters is that the offenders believed it did, these offenders often act out as individuals rather than in groups. The final category of hate crime is mission hate crimes, these people want to destroy all members of a particular group, they believe the world will be a better place and are on a moral

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