Hate Crimes Essays (704 words) - Discrimination, Abuse, Criminology

Hate Crimes 1. I feel that any time a person or group is physically assaulted there is a major problem in existence. That is exactly what a hate crime is, assault towards another person or persons and according to the FBI the number of hate crimes towards authorities "increased from 5,852 in 1994 to 8,759 in 1996 (handout)." When you start committing crimes against those that are supposed to protect us from these crimes it becomes much more difficult to stop or even contain these crimes. I believe that our society is too focused on the perfect specimen, and that is totally different to everyone. These different views are what causes people to discriminate against others whether it be about sex, race or religion. The range of the crimes has drastically increased lately, spreading to the discrimination of "Jews, Hispanics, Pacifists, abortion doctors, the federal government and many more (handout)." As long as our society is focused on finding the perfect specimen I don' believe we will see an end to hate crimes any time in the near future. 2. The Catholic Church says, "hatred of the neighbor is a grave sin when one deliberately desires him grave harm (CCC #2203)." What this means in laymen term is that we should love our neighbor even if they wrong us. It is not our place to hold grudges against others. If we are harmed by another it is our job to forgive the person and get on with our lives and we should leave it up to God to punish that person for what they have done. Although it may not be the easiest thing in the world Jesus has told us to turn the other cheek and forgive our enemies if this I done we would truly be following the catechisms teaching. 3. This question is kind of a rhetorical one because if we followed the Catholic Churches teaching on any issue it would not be an issue. If we treated all of Gods' people with the same respect and love Christ did than we would all be best friends and wouldn't have to worry about others harming us in any way. So in response to the question not only would this be less of a problem, but it would not be a problem at all if we followed the Churches teaching on this issue or any other issue. 4. This is a very touchy issue when it comes to laws because we have so many rights that are protected in the constitution such as freedom to assemble and freedom of speech that if there is no physical harm being inflicted than there is really nothing the police can do. I personally think that it should be outlawed for groups such as the KKK to assemble outside of city halls because everyone knows what their purpose is and by letting them do that it is almost like giving our consent. Another big problem is the Internet. The Internet gives otherwise innocent people access to all sorts of ideas that they never would have been exposed to and when one is weak they will believe almost anything thrown at them. Other than those two laws or regulations I really can not think of anything else that can be fixed or changed in order to help this issue, it would take close to a miracle to be able to even reduce this problem a little bit. 5. One good way to get rid of this problem in society is to try and counter act any hate crime group with one that is equally as strong if not stronger, that goes against the crime in a peaceful non violent manner. This would show the people committing these crimes that we are not just going to sit back and watch these act be committed. While this may not work in every case it should do a pretty decent job in stopping some people. Another way to get these crimes from happening would be to give a heavy punishment for anything that resembles a hate crime because those who commit these crimes walk away much too easy for what they have done. If we show people by legal physical action that we are not going to be pushed around the amount of crimes will drastically decrease. Granted there is nothing that will completely stop these crimes and these ideas may not even help the issue that much but I feel they will do some amount of good.