This research paper discusses the nature and incidence of hate crimes in the United States and laws which have been enacted or proposed to deal with them. Although the evidence is not conclusive that the number of hate crimes has actually increased in recent decades, their frequency suggests that racial, ethnic and other minorities have been threatened by them. The response has been a rash of legislation at state and federal levels, much of which is of questionable effectiveness. This legislation should be understood as being an outlet for society's frustration with hate crimes and as an exercise in political symbolism rather than as a serious attempt to deal with the underlying problems involved.
During the past two decades, the media have reported many crimes against racial, ethnic and other minorities which appear to have been motivated by deep emotional antagonisms and prejudice. Davis (1995) defines hate crimes "as crimes that manifest prejudice based on certain group characteristics" (p. 386). A hate crime is closely allied to and often an overt expression in conduct of hate speech, which Walker (1994) says includes "any form of expression deemed offensive to any racial, religious, ethnic or national group" (p. 8). Examples of hate crimes include the bombing of black churches, the killing of a white federal judge hearing civil rights cases by a pipe bomb sent through the mail, cross-burnings, and various forms of vandalism and assault, including crimes committed against whites during the riots in South Central Los Angeles in the aftermath of the verdict by an all white jury in Simi Valley which acquitted the policemen who allegedly beat Rodney King. In a recent incident, Matthew Shepard, a young white gay person, was brutally tied up, tortured, pistol-whipped and left to die outside a bar in Laramie, Wyoming.
No single group has a monopoly on hate crimes, some being attributable to ultra-rightist organizations, such as t...