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Essay On Hate Crimes

836 Words4 Pages

On June 7, 1998, A 49-year-old man James Byrd Jr. of Texas received a ride home from three white drunk men. Instead of them taking him home they beat him severely, urinated on him, chained him by his ankles to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him for more than three mile along an asphalt road into and a secluded country area east of the town where they dumped his headless torso in front of an African American cemetery. Over a year later, a jury sentenced Lawrence Russell Brewer to death by lethal injections in the state of Texas. On the other hand, the other two suspects John King remains on death row and Shawn Berry was sentenced to life imprisonment. This is one case that led to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention …show more content…

The statistics for various categories of hate crimes are totally different, for instance race is at its most high in the US with 57.1 of the cases were motivated by race. According to the National Population Demographics blacks are 28 times more likely to be victims of hate crimes than whites. Improvements in hate crime laws and punishments are necessary in order for these statics to decrease. Many people have different thoughts about hate crime statutes, most are for them and unlike the others they are against them. Today, hate crime laws are getting more enhanced day by day from all of the hate crimes that 's occurring.
Hate crimes have an established set of laws that 's extremely enhanced and severe if crime is committed. According to Howard P. Berkowitz hate crimes are constitutional. “Current hate-crime laws are both valuable and constitutional” (Berkowitz). The reason why hate crime laws are valuable and constitutional is that it gives the victim the opportunity to have justice and is valid under the law. “We do not view penalty enhancement as a panacea, a cure all for the scourge of hate in society” (Berkowitz). Penalty enhancements are not a solution for all the hate crime that 's occurring in

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