Essays on Hate Crime

Discussion Board Posts

Main post starting a thread: Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields, "Chapter One" Racecraft (New York: Verso, 2012.) pp. 1-24. In chapter one of their book, Fields and Fields warn against an early celebration of the post-racial age, as people from minority groups continue to suffer from racial injustice. The authors talk about the racist concepts that continue to affect the way discussions about race are conducted in present-day America. The authors state that racist concepts are extremely harmful because they not only categorize people in obsolete racial groups that do not reflect their genealogical reality, but they ...

The Juvenile Offenders Learning Tolerance, or JOLT, program was set up by the Los Angeles County District Attorney. It is aimed at young people who have been involved in hate crimes. The program consists of a broad training program for staff who work with children and young people in schools, a positive change program for juveniles who are found to have participated in hate crimes, and strict prosecution of teenagers who carry out severe hate crimes or do not finish the program. JOLT classes assist juvenile offenders in accepting “responsibility for their misconduct, recognize biases, and develop a plan to counteract negative ...

Introduction

People usually have prejudices against each other. They will even engage in hateful behavior. It is not all times that hateful behavior leads to hate crimes. “People engage in hateful behavior…still, no one really believes a Columbia lecturer is about to be lynched” The statement is not however conclusive or true, due to hate, a Columbian lecturer may be killed. Hateful behavior may lead to crime. Hate crime is different than other crimes and therefore necessitates to be treated differently. There are several reasons why the penalties should be high for these crimes. It is a highly personal crime since an ...