What is a hate crime? Why do hate crimes carry harsher penalties?
What will be an ideal response?
The government defines an ordinary crime as a hate crime when offenders are motivated to choose a victim because of some characteristic—for example, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or disability—and provide evidence that hatred prompted them to commit the crime. Hate crimes also are sometimes referred to as bias crimes. While many non-hate crimes may include a motivation of hatred toward an individual or organization, a hate or bias crime toward a minority is intended to carry a message well beyond the individual victim. When a person is assaulted because they are gay or lesbian, the act is meant to terrorize all gay and lesbians. Vandalizing a mosque or synagogue is meant to warn all Muslims or Jews that they are not wanted and their religious faith is considered inferior. In many respects, today's hate crimes are like the terrorist efforts of the Ku Klux Klan of generations ago. Targets may be randomly selected, but the group being terrorized is carefully chosen. In many jurisdictions, having a crime being classified as a hate crime can increase the punishment. For example, a misdemeanor like vandalism can be increased to a felony. A felony that is a hate crime can carry a greater prison sentence. These sanctions were upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1993 decision Mitchell v. Wisconsin, which recognized that greater harm may be done by hate-motivated crimes.
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What will be an ideal response?