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Concept
Hate crime
Summary
A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership (or perceived membership) of a certain social group or racial demographic.
Examples of such groups can include, and are almost exclusively limited to ethnicity, disability, language, nationality, physical appearance, political views and/or affiliation, age, religion, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Non-criminal actions that are motivated by these reasons are often called "bias incidents".
In the U.S., the FBI defines a hate crime as a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. Hate itself is not a hate crime but committing a crime motivated by bias against one or more of the social groups listed above, or by bias against their derivatives constitutes a hate crime.
Incidents may involve physical assault, homicide, damage to property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse (which includes slurs) or insults, mate crime, or offensive graffiti or letters (hate mail).
A hate crime law is a law intended to deter bias-motivated violence. Hate crime laws are distinct from laws against hate speech: hate crime laws enhance the penalties associated with conduct which is already criminal under other laws, while hate speech laws criminalize a category of speech.
The term "hate crime" came into common usage in the United States during the 1980s, but it is often used retrospectively in order to describe events which occurred prior to that era. From the Roman persecution of Christians to the Nazi slaughter of Jews, hate crimes were committed by individuals as well as governments long before the term was commonly used. A major part of defining crimes as hate crimes is determining that they have been committed against members of historically oppressed groups.
As Europeans began to colonize the world from the 16th century onwards, indigenous peoples in the colonized areas, such as Native Americans, increasingly became the targets of bias-motivated intimidation and violence.
Official source
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