User:Hyacinth/Hate crime
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A hate crime is a legal category used to described bias-motivated violence: "assault, injury, and murder on the basis of certain personal characteristics: different appearance, different color, different nationality, different language, different religion."[1]
A hate crime law is a law intended to prevent bias-motivated violence.
Contents |
[edit] Crimes
Hate crimes have a history longer than the United States with genocide attempted against Native America by the Dutch, French, Spanish, and British colonists and later American citizens for over three centuries. The verb lynching is derived from Charles Lynch, an 18th-century Virginia planter known for leading vigilante actions against Tories including tarring and feathering and hanging. Lynching now thus means execution outside of "ordinary justice" and is associated with weak or nonexistent police authority, like in the Old West, and racism.[2]
[edit] Laws
Hate crime laws have a long history in the United States. The first hate crime laws where passed after the American Civil War. The modern era of hate-crime legislation was begun in 1968 with the passage of federal statute, 18 U.S. 245, part of the Civil Rights Act which made it illegal to "by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone who is engaged in six specified protected activities, by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin." However, "The prosecution of such crimes must be certified by the U.S. attorney general."[3].
The first state hate-crime statute, California's Section 190.2, was passed in 1978 and provided for penalty enhancement in cases where murder was motivated by prejudice against four "protected status" categories: race, religion, color, and national origin. Washington included ancestry in a statute passed in 1981. Alaska included creed and gender in 1982 and later disability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. In the 1990s some state laws began to include age, marital status, membership in the armed forces, and membership in civil rights organizations.[4]
Criminal acts which could be considered hate crimes in various states included aggravated assault, assault and battery, vandalism, rape, threats and intimidation, arson, trespassing, stalking, and various "lesser" acts until in 1987 California state legislation included all crimes as possible hate crimes.[5]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] Sources
- Streissguth, Tom (2003). Hate Crimes (Library in a Book). ISBN 0-8160-4879-7.
