This document discusses victim typologies in relation to hate crimes. It provides background on hate crime laws and data collection in the US. It summarizes a five-category typology of victimization developed by Sellin and Wolfgang, including primary, secondary, tertiary, mutual, and no victimization. Hate crimes involve primary victimization, targeting individuals for their race, religion, or other attributes. While polls showed improving race relations after Obama's election, data from the Uniform Crime Report shows hate crime rates have actually been decreasing since 1996.
Perceptions of the Social Consequences of Rape in EzinihitteMbaise, Imo State...AJHSSR Journal
Rape is a criminal act of obtaining sexual consent or submission forcefully or by use of threat.
In many places, the scar of rape is perceived to be permanent and the female victims are usually stigmatized.
The paper examined the perceptions of the social consequences of rape in Ezinihitte-Mbaise, Imo State, Nigeria.
The paper is anchored on feminist theory, Marxian theory and rational choice theory. The sample size and study
participants were 324 adult residents of the area. They were selected using multi-stage sampling procedure and
purposive sampling technique. Questionnaire and In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) were the quantitative and
qualitative instruments of data collection used in the study. Quantitative data were analyzed using Statistical
Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and interpreted in tables of frequency/percentage distributions.
Transcription of the recorded electronic and field note interviews provided data for the qualitative analysis. The
result amongst others revealed that 20.3% of the respondents were of the view that stigmatization; withdrawal
from social activities (18.6%), delay in getting married (25.2%) were notable social consequences of rape.
However, the paper concluded that stigmatization or possible avoidance of marrying rape victims sustains the
trauma and would also serve as a secondary victimization. It therefore recommended amongst others that
government in partnership with NGO's should embark on adequate sensitization campaigns in rural areas to
discourage stigmatization and thereby reorientate many on the wrong notion that rape scar remains with the
victims for life. Females should avoid walking unaccompanied in the night and visiting of acquaintances at
lonely places.
A short presentation on the phenomenon Rape Culture, Myth or Reality. Victims prefer to remain silent for a number of reasons. The silent chorus (society) helps to perpetuate the myths in many instances. How does one begin to address the challenges encountered?
Hall del elizabeth del proyecto de la unidad 9 que determina la traducción es...Elizabeth Hall
Word Processor Spanish Translation- of Paper originally written in Englsih
Traducción española del procesador de textos del papel del wri originalmente
Perceptions of the Social Consequences of Rape in EzinihitteMbaise, Imo State...AJHSSR Journal
Rape is a criminal act of obtaining sexual consent or submission forcefully or by use of threat.
In many places, the scar of rape is perceived to be permanent and the female victims are usually stigmatized.
The paper examined the perceptions of the social consequences of rape in Ezinihitte-Mbaise, Imo State, Nigeria.
The paper is anchored on feminist theory, Marxian theory and rational choice theory. The sample size and study
participants were 324 adult residents of the area. They were selected using multi-stage sampling procedure and
purposive sampling technique. Questionnaire and In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) were the quantitative and
qualitative instruments of data collection used in the study. Quantitative data were analyzed using Statistical
Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and interpreted in tables of frequency/percentage distributions.
Transcription of the recorded electronic and field note interviews provided data for the qualitative analysis. The
result amongst others revealed that 20.3% of the respondents were of the view that stigmatization; withdrawal
from social activities (18.6%), delay in getting married (25.2%) were notable social consequences of rape.
However, the paper concluded that stigmatization or possible avoidance of marrying rape victims sustains the
trauma and would also serve as a secondary victimization. It therefore recommended amongst others that
government in partnership with NGO's should embark on adequate sensitization campaigns in rural areas to
discourage stigmatization and thereby reorientate many on the wrong notion that rape scar remains with the
victims for life. Females should avoid walking unaccompanied in the night and visiting of acquaintances at
lonely places.
A short presentation on the phenomenon Rape Culture, Myth or Reality. Victims prefer to remain silent for a number of reasons. The silent chorus (society) helps to perpetuate the myths in many instances. How does one begin to address the challenges encountered?
Hall del elizabeth del proyecto de la unidad 9 que determina la traducción es...Elizabeth Hall
Word Processor Spanish Translation- of Paper originally written in Englsih
Traducción española del procesador de textos del papel del wri originalmente
Running head: RACE AND CRIME
1
RACE AND CRIME
8
Race and Crime
Why Racialization of Crime in the United States News Media is Dangerous and should be stopped
Introduction and Current Failings
The United States news media plays a massive role in informing and educating the public not only on political issues but also on social issues like crime. Since the inauguration of President Donald Trump in 2016, he has succeeded in using fear as his political weapon (Evers, Fisher & Schaaf, 2019). One of the things that stand out in his presidency is the dishonest claim that the rates of crime have gone up, despite the national trends on violent crimes going down significantly. Trump’s fear-mongering, which seems to be working, has permitted the news media with the Center for American Progress and GBA Strategies reporting that 88 percent of Americans regard crime on the national level as a major issue and that of immediate crisis (Adamson, 2017).
Whether through well-intended intentions or not, the news media are amplifying the national-level fear through constant reporting on Donald Trump, crime and how it has been racialized. Since the perception of national crime is an abstract concept to the ordinary citizens, the news media has likely been playing an out sized role in shaping the imagination of the public (Douai & Perry, 2018). Needless to say, the news media not only contributes towards the overestimation of crime statistics by members of the public through its reporting on the president’s fear-mongering and controversies but it also over reports on violent crimes, which feed destructive ethnic and racial biases about the people responsible.
African American men are often over-represented as the major perpetrators of violent crimes in the United States media (Zack, 2015). For instance, one survey of late-night news outlets in the city of New York established in 2014 that the media reported on violent crimes like assault, theft and murder in which black men and women were suspects at a rate that was far higher than the actual arrest rates for the same mentioned crimes (Adamson, 2017). The study also found out that black people are vilified by the news media by presenting black crime suspects as more dangerous and threatening than those from other dominant races like the whites.
The vilification is done by displaying the mug shots of African American suspects more frequently than those from the white community; depicting African American suspects in police cells more frequently; and paying deeper attention to criminal cases where the victims are strangers (Zack, 2015). Further, the news media has also played a part in worsening the racial differences and tensions between the white people and the blacks by particularly perpetuating and spread ...
Crime Waves, Fears, and Social RealityThe American criminal just.docxwillcoxjanay
Crime Waves, Fears, and Social Reality
The American criminal justice system is a mirror that shows a distorted image of the dangers that threaten us—an image created more by the shape of the mirror than by the reality reflected.
—Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton
For decades, polls have found that people in the United States are wor- ried about crime. A Gallup poll found that people worried their credit card information would be stolen by hackers (69%), their homes would be bur- glarized when they were not there (45%), their car would be stolen (42%), their child would be physically harmed while attending school (31%), they would be mugged on the streets (31%), their home would be burglarized when they were there (30%), they would be victims of terrorism (28%), they would be attacked while driving their car (20%), they would be murdered (18%), they would be the victim of a hate crime (18%), they would be sexu- ally assaulted (18%), or they would be assaulted/killed at work (7%) (Riffkin, 2014). The learning process for these fears is complex, but one contributing factor is the dissemination of crime statistics by the media and the govern- ment. (Recall our discussion of the crime clock in the first chapter.) How reli- able and valid are these statistics? Does the public’s perception of crime reflect the reality of crime?
The number of people who fear crime is substantial. Perceptions about individuals who engage in criminal behavior are even more revealing. Jef- frey Reiman and Paul Leighton (2017) describe the stereotyped image:
Think of a crime, any crime. . . . What do you see? The odds are you are not imagining an oil company executive sitting at his desk, calculating the costs of proper safety precautions and deciding not to invest in them. Prob
ably what you see with your mind’s eye is one person attacking another physically or robbing something from another via the threat of physical attack. Look more closely. What does the attacker look like? It’s a safe bet he (and it is a he, of course) is not wearing a suit and tie. In fact, you—like us, like almost anyone else in America—picture a young, tough, lower- class male when the thought of crime first pops into your head. (p. 74)
The “Typical Criminal” in the minds of most people who fear being vic- tims of crime is poor, young, urban, and black—“threatening the lives, limbs, and possessions of the law-abiding members of society, necessitating recourse to the ultimate weapons of force and detention in our common defense” (pp. 67–68).
The presidential campaign for George H. Bush in 1988 capitalized on this stereotypical image with its infamous “Willie Horton” commercials. The governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis, was Bush’s opponent; his state had a highly successful prison furlough program. The Bush campaign seized on a single case where a participant in the program (Horton) committed a violent crime while on furlough. Willie Horton was an African American male whose predations were .
Crime Waves, Fears, and Social RealityThe American criminal just.docxfaithxdunce63732
Crime Waves, Fears, and Social Reality
The American criminal justice system is a mirror that shows a distorted image of the dangers that threaten us—an image created more by the shape of the mirror than by the reality reflected.
—Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton
For decades, polls have found that people in the United States are wor- ried about crime. A Gallup poll found that people worried their credit card information would be stolen by hackers (69%), their homes would be bur- glarized when they were not there (45%), their car would be stolen (42%), their child would be physically harmed while attending school (31%), they would be mugged on the streets (31%), their home would be burglarized when they were there (30%), they would be victims of terrorism (28%), they would be attacked while driving their car (20%), they would be murdered (18%), they would be the victim of a hate crime (18%), they would be sexu- ally assaulted (18%), or they would be assaulted/killed at work (7%) (Riffkin, 2014). The learning process for these fears is complex, but one contributing factor is the dissemination of crime statistics by the media and the govern- ment. (Recall our discussion of the crime clock in the first chapter.) How reli- able and valid are these statistics? Does the public’s perception of crime reflect the reality of crime?
The number of people who fear crime is substantial. Perceptions about individuals who engage in criminal behavior are even more revealing. Jef- frey Reiman and Paul Leighton (2017) describe the stereotyped image:
Think of a crime, any crime. . . . What do you see? The odds are you are not imagining an oil company executive sitting at his desk, calculating the costs of proper safety precautions and deciding not to invest in them. Prob
ably what you see with your mind’s eye is one person attacking another physically or robbing something from another via the threat of physical attack. Look more closely. What does the attacker look like? It’s a safe bet he (and it is a he, of course) is not wearing a suit and tie. In fact, you—like us, like almost anyone else in America—picture a young, tough, lower- class male when the thought of crime first pops into your head. (p. 74)
The “Typical Criminal” in the minds of most people who fear being vic- tims of crime is poor, young, urban, and black—“threatening the lives, limbs, and possessions of the law-abiding members of society, necessitating recourse to the ultimate weapons of force and detention in our common defense” (pp. 67–68).
The presidential campaign for George H. Bush in 1988 capitalized on this stereotypical image with its infamous “Willie Horton” commercials. The governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis, was Bush’s opponent; his state had a highly successful prison furlough program. The Bush campaign seized on a single case where a participant in the program (Horton) committed a violent crime while on furlough. Willie Horton was an African American male whose predations were .
Jones 1Jones 7Kyle JonesMatthew ZimmermanEnglish 10222 N.docxpriestmanmable
Jones 1
Jones 7
Kyle Jones
Matthew Zimmerman
English 102
22 November 2014[Title]: [Subtitle]
In 2014, we live in a world with a media saturated culture. This is the era of digital news services, of 24-hour news channels, free newspapers, and even media based applications. For the majority of us, the way in which we learn about the world outside our personal perception is through the consumption of news, mainly still through broadcast or print (OFCOM 2007). Various forms of media has fed the public statistics that created a sense of stereotyping for each particular race. For example, the media and those on film, such as politics and leaders of the government, link together race and crime, which conveys a criminal image of the public’s consumption (St. John & Heald-Moore, 1995). Since race and crime are tied together, when one thinks of a crime, hears about a crime, or when crime is being reported, race is usually associated with it. In the American society, a frequent representation of crime is that it is majorly committed by African- Americans. The view of African Americans has been distorted and twisted by the media. Without question, almost everything that is being covered by the media is believed by most of society and it becomes their actual perceptual reality. Broadcast media and other various forms of media has a history for portraying African Americans in a biased manner, as if they were mostly reported involved in crime, drugs, or acts of violence. This has led to many cases of stereotyping, racial profiling, police brutality, prejudice, inhumane acts and has brain washed most of our society into believing that almost every African American is mischievous or a threat to their well-being. African Americans are unjustly, as well as unrealistically depicted on broadcast news and various other types of mass media. These negative connotations affects more than just African- Americans but also every other culture that exists in America.
African Americans have been associated with crime for quite some time. It was not until some in the 1970’s and early 1980s that the popular stereotype of the young black man evolved in the eyes of many from a petty thief or rapist into the notorious , malicious criminal predators, or what Kathery Russel ( 2002) has argued, is the world recognized “ criminalblackman”. Within the last few decades there have been controversial law enforcement practices of racial profiling. Law enforcement officials pursue minorities in an attempt to increase the likely hood of catching illegal activity or the predetermined act of illegal activity, which is part of a consequence from the racial profiling that the media has inflicted upon society. The questionable practices has led to negative effects on blacks. To the African American culture law officials are deemed more criminal or more of a threat than what the media and statistics has condemned blacks to be. The after math, after the many years of harassment, African ...
Running head Overpopulation and violence 1Overpopulation and v.docxjeanettehully
Running head: Overpopulation and violence 1
Overpopulation and violence 9Overpopulation and Violence: The poison of America
Roger F. Lewis
St. Thomas University
Table of Contents
Abstract 3
Overpopulation and Violence: The poison of America 4
Literature Review 6
Data 8
Data Analysis/Findings 8
References 10
Tables 12
Figures 13
Abstract
America has seen a lot of violence in the past two decades. We have experienced violence in many forms form terrorists’ attacks on September 11, 2001, mass shootings such as Las Vegas and Pulse Orlando shootings, mass school shootings, FedEx bombings, Walmart shootings, racial violence, and even bullying. Majority of our violence are by our own citizens and in order to determine why America is so violent, a research study will be conducted on what makes people commit violent acts? Why America is so intrigue with violence? Does it have to do with how America was founded?
The research is conducted in review of previous events in order to determine if the United States can be considered a violent community. When you look back at the previous events, most of the violence is linked with guns. The paper is also set up to investigate the impact of such violence on society, and the younger generation. The measure of violence is comprehensive with terrorist activities, mass shootings, cyber-bullying/bullying and poverty.
The study was conducted through questionnaires that were shared amongst a group of 30 random individuals who form the sample population. The individuals are composed of American citizens, visitor in the state and other persons who have taken up residence in the U.S. for a period of time. The study is also conducted using SPSS for the interpretation and gathering of the analysis. The questionnaire contains 20 identified possible causes of violence for the participants to pick out from.
Overpopulation and Violence: The poison of America
The United States is a ranked as the most violent country globally. The rates of murder in the country are extremely high compared to other nations such as Japan and Canada. There more cases of assault, rape and robbery in USA compared to most nations. Crime rates in the country have always been greater than in other rich nations. Violence entailing relationships accounts for 32% of the violent deaths. Knives and guns are the main weapons utilized in murders involving relationships. It is estimated that more than 70% of the privately-owned guns in the world are found in United States and majorly owned by men. Over the years, deaths that have been performed using guns have reached the 30,000 mark. Approximately more than 300 million guns are privately owned in United States (Stark, 2017).
I believe that overpopulation is the reason why America is a violent society. Basically, overpopulation leads to the depletion of resources and individuals begin fighting to acquire the scarce resources. Individuals are willing to use violence to acquire the scarce resources theref ...
Citizenship Status and Arrest Patterns for Violentand NarcotVinaOconner450
Citizenship Status and Arrest Patterns for Violent
and Narcotic-Related Offenses in Federal Judicial
Districts along the U.S./Mexico Border
Deborah Sibila1 & Wendi Pollock2 & Scott Menard3
Received: 8 September 2016 /Accepted: 30 October 2016 /
Published online: 10 November 2016
# Southern Criminal Justice Association 2016
Abstract Media reports routinely reference the drug-related violence in Mexico,
linking crime in communities along the Southwest U.S. Border to illegal immigrants.
The primary purpose of the current research is to examine whether the media assertions
can be supported. Logistic regression models were run to determine the impact of
citizenship on the likelihood of disproportionate arrest for federal drug and violent
crimes, along the U.S./Mexico border. In arrests for homicide, assault, robbery, and
weapons offenses, U.S. citizens were disproportionately more likely than non-citizens
to be arrested. The only federal crime where non-citizens were disproportionately more
likely to be arrested than were U.S. citizens was for marijuana offenses. Results of the
current study challenge the myth of the criminal immigrant.
Keywords Citizenship . Arrest . Criminal immigrant . Gender
The myth of the criminal immigrant is perhaps one of the single most controversial
factors contributing to America’s present day anti-immigrant fervor. In their book, The
Am J Crim Just (2017) 42:469–488
DOI 10.1007/s12103-016-9375-1
* Wendi Pollock
[email protected]
Deborah Sibila
[email protected]
Scott Menard
[email protected]
1 Department of Government, Stephen F. Austin State University, Box 13045 SFA Station,
Nacogdoches, TX 75962, USA
2 Department of Social Sciences, Texas A&M University, 6300 Ocean Drive, Corpus Christi,
TX 78412, USA
3 Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s12103-016-9375-1&domain=pdf
Immigration Time Bomb, authors Richard D. Lamm and Gary Imhoff contend that the
issue of immigration and crime is a critically divisive topic easily subject to misinter-
pretation (1985, p. 21). The belief that immigrants are more crime-prone than native-
born is not a twentieth century development. Debates on this controversy date back
more than 100 years (Hagan & Palloni, 1998; Martinez & Lee, 2000). Hagan and
Pallon believed that the nexus between immigration and crime is so misleading that it
constitutes a mythology (1999, p. 630). In a special report for the Immigration Policy
Center, professors Ruben Rumbaut and Walter Ewing wrote B[The] misperception that
the foreign-born, especially illegal, immigrants are responsible for higher crime rates is
deeply rooted in American public opinion and sustained by media anecdote and
popular myth^ (2007, p. 3). Lee (2013) similarly argues that immigrants have a long
history of serving as scapegoats for a vast array of America’s societal problems
including crime.
Public opinion surveys suggest that a significant nu ...
Violence and Popular CultureViolence exists and has existed in a.docxdickonsondorris
Violence and Popular Culture
Violence exists and has existed in all societies. In contemporary North American society, we also see violence frequently in media--from news to films to video games. These representations have been blamed for creating a culture of fear and inspiring real violence, particularly among youth.
Media analysts argue that the question of media and violence must shift from a focus on violence in media to a focus on violence in our broader society. They argue that we need to make interconnections between class, gender, race and inequality in the debate on violence. This can be a difficult shift to make because contemporary media is rife with overt and subtle instances of violence. Violence is portrayed in the news, music videos, reality TV crime shows, films and video games.
In the wake of the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, media pundits discussed (Opens new window) whether video game consumption was producing violent people. While this is an interesting question, in this module we do not focus on whether violent images produce violent people. Nor do we examine whether media imagery has become increasingly violent. As one scholar (Opens new window)puts it,
Violence has always figured prominently in storytelling. Violent imagery has been around since hunters began scratching accounts of their exploits on the walls of caves. . . . Artifacts of Egyptian, Sumerian, Minoan, and Babylonian peoples all depict violent events, as do classical works of the ancient Greeks written 3,000 years ago. . . . The books of the Old Testament, written during the same period, are filled with accounts of genocide, war, human sacrifice, and, of course, various plagues. And as Mel Gibson so eloquently reminded moviegoers with his hugely successful film, The Passion of the Christ (2004), the biggest story of the New Testament culminates in rioting, ritual torture, and public execution. Perhaps more to the point, these grizzly stories have been repeated for centuries to children and adults alike as important works of history and religion. (Trend, The Myth of Media Violence 12-13)
This is not to deny that exposure to violent images may contribute toward violent behaviour.(Opens new window) But in a sociology course like this one, our job is to examine the role popular culture's representation of violence plays in the maintenance of cultural hegemony.
Video
Watch Mean World Syndrome (2010). (Opens new window)According to the documentary, what are some of the myths associated with media violence? What does George Gerbner say is the reason why violence pervades the media? How does popular culture use representations of violence to perpetuate racist myths? What is "mean world syndrome" anyway?
Law-and-order ideology
Law-and-order ideology has been chronically present in public, media, and political discourse, but it has assumed an even larger role in recent years. Particular media portrayals of criminal justice interact with ...
Similar to Hall_Elizabeth_Unit_Two_Written_assignment[1] (14)
1. Victim Typologies 1
Running Header: Victim Typologies In Relation To Hate Crimes
Victim Typologies In Relation to Hate Crimes
Elizabeth Hall
Kaplan University
Deviance and Violence CJ266
Melissa Amaya
January 19, 2010
Abstract
In the year 2009, the United States elected the first African American president, Barack Obama.
Some Americans felt that this would end the long overdue racial tensions in this country, and after four
months of being in office, polls showed that two out of three Americans believed that out of every three
people, two of them felt that as far as racial affairs in this country, things were generally going well.
Now, six months later, as the media comes into the one year anniversary of this historical event polls
are showing that confidence is dropping in the president’s effect on the matter. (Owens, 2010
Because the media has a direct affect on public opinion, how they portray the news, and what spin is
put on the issues affect public opinion. Researchers in the fields of criminology and victimology, use
data collected from the Uniform Crime Report and from the National Crime Victimization Survey to
base their opinions on before advising lawmakers on what needs to be changed in the law to reflect
current times. Because criminals who commit hate crimes choose their victim based on ethnicity,
appearance, race, religion, or sexual preference, it is considered especially unsettling to the general
public both on the community as a whole, and the individual these crimes affect personally because of
the groundless disposition of the crime itself. The reality of the hate crime trends is this, from a
criminological point of view. Since 1996, the rate of hate crimes has actually been decreasing.
Victim Typologies In Relation To Hate Crimes
2. In the year 2009, the United States elected the first African American president, Barack Obama.
Some Americans felt that this would end the long overdue racial tensions in this country, and after four
months of being in office, polls showed that two out of three Americans believed that out of every three
people, two of them felt that as far as racial affairs in this country, things were generally going well.
Now, six months later, as the media comes into the one year anniversary of this historical event, polls
are showing that confidence is dropping in the president’s effect on the matter as noted in the article
written January 19, 2010 in the Orlando Sentinel, by columnist Darryl E. Owens (2010) titled “Martin
Luther King Jr. Day- This moment was supposed to better race relations. It hasn’t.” Because the
media has a direct affect on public opinion, how they portray the news, and what spin is put on the
issues affect public opinion. Researchers in the fields of criminology and victimology, use data
collected from the Uniform Crime Report and from the National Crime Victimization Survey to base
their opinions on before advising lawmakers on what needs to be changed in the law to reflect current
times.
Victimology is the study of victimization in a scientific manner, regarding the relationships victims
share with perpetrators, and with the criminal justice system. Criminology is the study of the nature and
extent of crime in order to help determine crime rates, trends and methods of deterring recidivism
through the study of data and scientific research.
Crimes of this racial nature are called hate crimes, and since 1990 several laws have been enacted to
help the criminal justice system prosecute and sentence crimes of this sort. While hate crimes have
been around since the 1800’s, media and technology advances in science have allowed for the media to
monitor and report on these crimes more frequently, the coverage is more widespread, and can be
biased or incorrect, since data from the Uniform Crime Report suggests trends that are in fact, the
opposite of the way these crimes are portrayed in the media.
Victimologists Sellin and Wolfgang have offered a typology of victimization that lists five categories
and focuses more on situations instead of victim associations. The five categories are:
1. Primary Victimization- person or faction selects a specific individual or specific type of victim
to mark for persecution.
2. Secondary Victimization- victims are not personal objectives for the criminal.
3. Tertiary Victimization- the general public is the injured party.
4. Mutual Victimization- when a crime has multiple perpetrators, one criminal victimizes the
other.
5. No Victimization- is when the actual victim of these crimes is not easily distinguishable, such
as one person using a whip on another in the act of sexual gratification.
Crimes that involve race fall in the category of primary victimization. They are called Hate or Bias
Crimes, and the collection of information on these types of crimes began in 1990 with the passing of
the Federal Hate Crime Statistics Act in 1990, followed by the Church Arson Prevention Act in 1996,
and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999.
Because criminals who commit hate crimes choose their victim based on ethnicity, appearance, race,
religion, or sexual preference, it is considered especially unsettling to the general public both on the
community as a whole, and the individual these crimes affect personally because of the groundless
disposition of the crime itself. These crimes are considered mission based killings. Generating this data
can allow criminologists and victimologists to now study this data to track trends and to monitor crime
rates in areas where groups who preach hate such as the Aryan Brotherhood are concentrated.
(Meadows, 2007)
According to criminologists, more public fear is generated by violent crimes committed randomly
than any other violent crime that could be considered to have a cause that is considered rational to the
general public such as a husband shooting a cheating spouse. This is especially true of hate crimes
involving race as it is a trait that you are born with. (Meadows, 2007)
3. When the media over publicizes crimes of this nature, the general population of a whole community,
district or state can become fearful to conduct business or live their lives as usual. It is this media
attention that drives the poll numbers, since most citizens do not know about Uniform Crime Reports
and the results found from the data within, or in the case of the article by columnist Darryl E. Owens
(2010) who quotes John Altman, political scientist at New York College of Pennsylvania as saying “the
only memorable thing that our current president has done to further the discourse on race relations is to
bring together a white cop and a black college professor for a beer, it will be a long time before
anything changes”
The reality of the hate crime trends is this, from a criminological point of view. Since 1996, the rate
of hate crimes has actually been decreasing. There was a small spike in 2001, as illustrated in the table
on the next page. 1996 had a rate of 3.92 per100,000 people and the hate crime rate was 2.89 per
100,000 people in 2008. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d.) The data from 2009 is not even in yet,
and already the media is attempting to sway public opinion by publicizing poll numbers based on
general opinion. When the data from 2009 comes out in the Uniform Crime Report the data will
probably show the same trends that the 2008 data is displaying, however the opinion of the public will
only know what they heard in the media, which in turn shapes the poll numbers, which generates
election results. The public is only losing confidence in Obama because the voters thought that things
would immediately change when he was elected, but they did not stop to consider that no man could
turn the mess this country elected him in around in a single year. Obama remains steadfast in his ideas
that positive change promotes more positive changes and that this country needs to rethink the way that
the government approaches situations by using the old adage “you get more flies with honey than with
sandpaper”. The only way to achieve true peace in the world is, to quote Roosevelt, “to walk softly but
carry a big stick.
Data from Uniform Crime Report ht
Table 2. - Number of Incidents, Offenses, V
Table 2. - Number of Incidents, Offenses, V
All other
4.
5. Reference:
Federal Bureau of Investigation,(n.d.). Hate Crime. Retrieved From the World Wide Web
January 18, 2010. http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/civilrights/hate.htm
Meadows, R. (2007). Understanding Violence and Victimization, Fourth Edition.
Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pearson Prentice Hall
Owens, Darryl. (2010, January 18). Martin Luther King Jr. Day- This Moment Was
Supposed to Better Race Relations. It Hasn’t. Orlando Sentinel, Pg. A1, 883
Words.