Jacob Betts
CRJ #409 – Domestic Terrorism
Dr. den Heyer
January 29th, 2023
Arizona State University With the United States of America being the cultural melting pot that it is, it should come as no surprise that tensions will happen between all these ethnic and cultural groups. Although, this is very unfortunate, it is reality. Sometimes, these tensions and differences escalate to something more sinister. This where hate crimes come in.
There are numerous definitions on what a hate crime is and what a hate crime is not. In order to find the best definition, one would likely turn to the definition that is used in the United States legal system. According to United States Department of Justice the term hate crime refers
…show more content…
According to an article called The Psychology of Hate Crimes they state “hate crimes are an extreme form of prejudice, made more likely in the context of social and political change. Public and political discourse may devalue members of unfamiliar groups, and offenders may feel that their livelihood or way of life is threatened by demographic changes. Offenders may not be motivated by hate, but rather by fear, ignorance, or anger. These can lead to dehumanization of unfamiliar groups and to targeted aggression” (APA, 2017). In simpler terms, this means that one may commit a hate crime because they do not fully understand another’s ideology. This paired with fear and / or anger is an extremely dangerous …show more content…
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crime Data Explorer, there were 7,303 total hate crimes in the US in 2021. Out of those 7,303 reported hate crimes, 4,496 involved biases towards race / ethnicity / ancestry. Out of those 4,496 reported hate crimes targeted towards race / ethnicity / ethnicity, 2,233 of these crimes were targeted towards blacks or African Americans. (FBI, 2022). Breaking down those numbers will reveal that nearly half of hate crimes that were categorized as race / ethnicity / ancestry were targeted towards blacks or African Americans. Which is insane to think about. Especially when you realize that this specific classification of people only makes up 13% of the total population of the United States.
While exploring the victims’ dataset, it should be natural for one to explore what the offender is thinking. While it is nearly impossible to find out and record what every single hate crime offender is going through mentally, what can be categorized is their physical characteristics. For example, something like race can be. Out of the 6,561 offenders reported 3,659 were considered white. (FBI, 2022). This can be explained fairly easily as a majority of the country is white or Caucasian. So, proportionately, this is not too