Impact Of Hate Crimes
According to a presentation made by American Psychological Association, increased psychological stress that comes as a result of exposure to hate crime may lead to increase financials undertakings and loss for the victims (The American Psychological Association, 1998). According to the association, victims are likely to look for medical and psychological counseling associated with stress and depression which presents potential for unplanned expenditure on the part of the victims. This result to a heavy financial burden coupled with the fact that such groups are disadvantaged in terms of getting opportunities where they can earn decent incomes. According to the association, physical health is directly correlated with psychological health and this implies that victims who are psychologically tortured are unable to perform their daily tasks appropriately as expected. The victims are likely to experience somatic complications which require them to seek for extra medication resulting to more financial burden to the individual (The American Psychological Association, 1998). The association also cited that the employers face increase in costs when their employee s becomes victims of such hate violence. Social science research argues that most hate crimes occur in public such as in schools and work places. If it occurs in a work place, the employees' morale is affected interfering with the working relationships of all employees. There may even be possibilities of legal suits which may negatively affect employers. In schools, young people who are victims of these crimes are likely to undergo poor self esteem, resulting to poor performance and general feelings of insecurity. These crimes are also likely to result in loss of profits for businesses. This is because depressed people are likely to isolate themselves hence withdrawing from the general public. Such people are less likely to frequent commercial places to spend and this may affect business revenue. For such people who run business, hate crimes may propagate a feeling of insecurity in them leading to closure of businesses which may financially affect them and their dependants.
Social Impact of Hate Crimes
Hate crimes, unlike other crimes have far reaching social concerns. This is because the hate campaign is normally meant to send subliminal message to a wider reaching society (The American Psychological Association, 1998). The fact that it is an act on an individual identity implies that other members of the individual's community also feel threatened by any attack. A community which feels threatened may isolate itself and generally result to poor productivity among them. One reason identified as the cause of poor reporting of these cases has been acknowledged as the societal feeling of threatened and generation of mistrust among the agencies that are responsible for their security. The social impact is also extended to other social places which are supposed t o be neutral such as religious places, schools etc. The crimes also propagate a hate message among young people who are most likely to grow up hating members of communities or groups that targets them. Hate crimes also generate a general mistrust and hatred of responsible authorities who are seen as unable or biased towards the perpetrators (The American Psychological Association, 1998).
Psychological Impact as a result of Hate Crimes
According to social scientists, as reported by the American Psychology Association, hate crimes have devastating psychological ramifications as compared to other non-bias crimes despite the crimes having the same severity. Victims of these crimes have higher levels of stress, depression and anger compared to victims of non-bias crimes. The negative effects produced by these crimes are more long lasting as compared to other crimes (Dunbar, 1997). The study by the association showed that victims of hate crime are likely to still feel depressed and stressed as long as five years after the incident. In non-bias crimes, incidents of depression, anger and hatred significantly drops after the incident and are more likely to be forgotten sooner. The association presented these findings as support for the passing of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act introduced to the Senate in February, 2009 (The American Psychological Association, 2009).
Role of Economy in Hate Crimes
Racial and ethnic hatred targets are normally seen to be more prevalent during periods of economic distress. However, weak economies do not necessarily result to hate crimes. It is however to be noted here that the primary reason why hate crimes have happened in the past has nothing to do with economies (Dunbar, 1997). In its earliest form, lynching of blacks during pre depression period in the South had little to do with the economic hardships experienced those days. Its primary cause is seen to be internally propagated ideologies that create prejudice on the identity of a certain group of people. The economic aspect of hate crime may be realized when a minority group moves in a completely homogenous area (The American Psychological Association, 1998). The homogenous group may see the new comers as threats to their livelihoods given the fact that they are likely to increase competition for livelihood means with the locals. The homogenous group may also feel that their way of life is threatened and hence react by propagating hate crimes against the newcomers. The faster the minority enclave in the homogenous society, the faster that such community's is likely to retaliate through hate crimes (Dunbar, 1997). For instance, the Carnegie area of Brooklyn experienced massive outpouring of foreign people in the 1980's who generally belonged to groups considered disadvantaged (Dunbar, 1997) The influx of non whites in the region led to an upsurge of hate crimes in the area. Theorists argue that once integrated, communities that were initially hostile to each other are more likely to have lower rates of hate crimes than non integrated communities (The American Psychological Association, 1998).
Actions that can be adopted to reduce Hate crimes
The reporting of hate crimes is generally low and this is associated with the fear that these crimes elicit with the possibility of retaliatory attacks. This implies that government security agencies may be unable to institute very comprehensive measures to curb hate crimes. It is also possible that a considerable number of communities are ignorant of their existence and prevalence and therefore do very little to avert them. The American Psychological Association is one of the bodies that have consistently lobbied the Congress on the need for legislature reforms concerning hate crimes (Dunbar, 1997). In 2008, the association wrote a report and expressed their support for the passing of the Hate Crimes Act. Specifically, the association has lobbied the Congress to institute and support antidiscrimination legislation, laws and regulations to ensure full legal recognition and protection against hate crimes. The Association was very vocal in pushing for the legislation of the 1998 act on hate Crimes Prevention. It has also lobbied the Congress in supporting CRS, Community Relations Service, the arm of the Justice Department that collaborates with local officials and communities to resolve ethno-racial conflicts. Apart from organized associations, there is need for community leaders including law enforcement officials, policy makers, researchers, religious leaders and educators to work together against hate crimes. The prevalence of hate crimes is normally propagated by poor reporting and general ignorance in communities (Dunbar, 1997). There should hence be conscious efforts to collect information and enforce the law where necessary. Failure to report normally steps from feeling of bias among minority groups that the law enforces cannot help them. To assist victims of such crimes, support programs should be instituted to offer training for victim assistance professional and police on prevention techniques that can help the crime victims to cope with trauma. The communities should also be encouraged to launch and engage in educational activities that can assist in fighting with old style stereotypes, stimulate intercultural understanding, reduce hostilities among different groups and promote cohesion and understanding. A lot of effort should be put especially in schools to promote social cohesion from when children are younger (Dunbar, 1997, p. 16). According to psychologists, teachings on anti bias should be introduced at early school and continue in further studies, in high school and universities.
The US Hate Crime Laws
In the United States, a hate crime is categorized as a criminal offense (National Crime Victim Survey, 1999). As of the law, federal prosecution is supposed to be instigated on such crimes committed on the basis of a persons color, race, religion, or nation especially when involved in an activity that enjoys federal protection such as a school, public places, places of worship etc. The latest change in this act has been moved in the year 2009 by Mathew Shepard and ostensibly called the Mathew Shepard Act. The new changes have included the definition of the crime as one committed against perceived gender identity, gender, disability or sexual orientation. In the change, the prerequisite for a person to be involved in a federal protected activity has also been dropped. The president of the United States, Barrack Obama assented to this new change on 28th October 2009 (New American, 2009, p1). The act is intended to provide federal assistance to local jurisdictions, states and Indian tribes to investigate and prosecute crimes that are categorized as hate crimes. According to the New American release of October 2008, the president signed the 2010 act on National Defense Authorization which had an attached extension on hate crimes legislation. The act, Mathew Shepard Act, was named after Mathew Shepard, a homosexual Wyoming student who was murdered 10 years ago (New American, 2009, p1). According to the president, the act would help protect American citizens fro targeting based on who they are, how they pray, who they love or their appearance. Despite the fact that the act received a lot of opposition from the Republicans, the act will help stem the now too familiar victimization of minority groups in the US. The opponents of this Act felt that the Act was meant to seclude some people and give them too much protection than other people (New American, 2009, p1).
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