The New Vaccine for the Hate Crime Epidemic:
By: Cameron Fields
Tags: Education Reform, Gun Control, Hate Crimes, Psychology

In the past there have been numerous attempts to decrease the amount of hate crimes which infest the lives of communities across the United States. In 1990, President Bush signed a law which required a detailed study of all crimes which were motivated by racial, ethnic or sexual prejudice. As he was signing the law President Bush said, “The faster we can find out about these hideous crimes, the faster we can track down the bigots who commit them” (President Signs a Law to Study Hate Crimes). This was the first time that a President has ever signed a law which included homosexuals with traditional groups like racial and religious minorities. It was the first time that members of the LGBTQ community were directly invited to the White House for an event. Around the time that President Bush signed the law, The National Hate Crimes Statistics Act was overwhelmingly supported by Members of Congress. This law “requires the Justice Department to spend five years gathering data on crimes motivated by prejudice about race, religion, ethnic background or sexual orientation” (President Signs a Law to Study Hate Crimes). It also provided people with a toll free number ( 1–800–347-HATE), which is available to the public, so they can immediately report hate crimes.

More recently, in New Jersey they established a Bias Crime Unit, which is located in the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. The main purpose of the Bias Crime Unit is to provide everyone with ample information, in order to assist them in identifying, fighting, and eliminating hate crimes in New Jersey. Information in the literature about hate crimes include, what a hate crime is, common types of bias/ hate crimes, and methods of reporting hate crimes. This information is easily accessible online and in multiple languages (Identifying, Understanding & Reporting Bias Crime).

Additionally, currently in New Jersey, being convicted of a hate crime, is no small matter, and can have large implications later in life. The most common type of hate crime is bias intimidation. There are four ways one can be convicted of bias intimidation, committing a crime with the purpose of intimidating an individual(s) because of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability and ethnicity. Someone can also be convicted of committing a hate crime if they are aware that what is being done would cause a group of people to feel intimidated. Furthermore, if someone commits crime where the target feels that the crime has been committed with the purpose to intimidate them, it is considered a hate crime. And lastly, committing a crime against the property of another person because the owner of the property was a member of one of the above groups. While the punishment for the crimes are not set in stone, each of these crimes are correlated with a substantial punishment in order to decrease the likelihood of the crime occurring again (Rosenblum).

More recently on a federal level, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed by President Obama in 2009. This act removed past barriers faced by prosecutions of certain race and religion motivated violence, and added more protection against crimes based on gender, sexual orientation and disabilities. The exact wording of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act states,

Makes it a federal crime to willfully cause bodily injury, or attempt to do so using a dangerous weapon, because of the victim’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin. The Act also extends federal hate crime prohibitions to crimes committed because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person, only where the crime affected interstate or foreign commerce or occurred within federal special maritime and territorial jurisdiction. The Shepard-Byrd Act is the first statute allowing federal criminal prosecution of hate crimes motivated by the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. (Hate Crime Laws)

While there have been many laws enacted in order to help classify and prevent hate crime from occuring, I feel that there is still so much that needs to be done, in order to combat the pandemic that is hate crimes in the United States. In order to prevent hate crimes from continually occurring, it is vital to educate people on hate crimes of all forms, recognize and address psychological factors related to hate crimes, and enforce stricter gun laws, in hopes to make the United States a safe place for its minorities.

The first course of action that needs to be taken, is education. This may seem like a simple solution, however after almost eighteen years of schooling (preschool through college), hate crimes rarely appear in the average school’s curriculum. Looking at this issue from a psychological standpoint, adding hate crimes to the required education curriculum for the school systems across the United States, seems like a no brainer. In a study conducted by Jane Elliot, a sociologist and school teacher, she attempted to simulate discrimnation for her third grade students in her classroom. In her experiment, ‘The Brown-Eye, Blue-Eye’ experiment, she divided her classroom into two segregated groups; children with brown eyes, and children with blue eyes, where Elliot treated each of these groups differently for a week. For example, for one week, she treated the children with brown eyes as if they were superior to the children with blue eyes, by giving them extra recess time. She treated the children with blue eyes, more harshly, by giving them more assignments to complete. Then, the next week, she switched the roles of the groups. Elliot found that the children in the group that were being oppressed were frustrated with the unfairness they experienced, thus teaching them what it was like to face discrimination (Kalat). This experiment has been mirrored in many schools across the United States, but the issue is that it has not been mirrored in all of the schools in the United States. ‘The Brown-Eye, Blue-Eye’ experiment directly shows the impact that role playing and facing first hand discrimination can have on a child. Therefore, by implementing this psychological technique in all of the schools in the United States, it will have major positive effects, and could possibly change the minds of our future generation, for the better.

Another reason why implementing education on hate crimes is vital in decreasing the spread of hate crimes in the United States, is because of the benefits it can have on society. On March 20, 2004, Phyllis B. Gerstenfeld, J.D., Ph.D., a professor at California State University, presented her paper on her implementation of a course of hate crimes at the Conference to Establish the Field of Hate Studies. In this presentation she reviews the challenges surrounding creating a curriculum in order to fully study hate crimes. These challenges include, choosing the scope of the class since hate crimes encompasses so many different disciplines, choosing appropriate texts for the class, dealing with students from different academic backgrounds, encouraging a class discussion, and finding activities and assignments. However, despite listing all of the challenges, in creating a curriculum that will give her students a thorough education on hate crimes, Gerstenfeld, continues her paper by talking about the benefits of this course. She talks about how much this course changes the way her students think. Previously, many of Gerstenfeld’s students were misinformed on hate crimes, however through this course she was able to correct any false information they may have learned, in order to recognize their own biases and correct them. This course allows them to be exposed to different disciplines, and “they also learn about many related topics, such as the causes and effects of prejudice, the Holocaust, the history and biology of the concept of race, the history of government-sanctioned racism in the United States” (Gerstenfeld). Through the course on hate crimes that Gerstenfeld taught, it shows us the benefits of teaching hate crimes as a part of a formal curriculum, and the positive impact it can have on society, in order to help decrease the bias which surrounds so many hate crimes, thus helping to rid society of hate crimes for the future generations (Gerstenfeld).

In the United States Constitution it states that everyone is created equal. However when it comes to hate crimes, recognizing that equality means something different depending on each group of people, is imperative in decreasing hate crimes (Rabrenovic). According to the theory of multiculturalism, in order to treat someone equally, you must accept, recognize, and celebrate their differences, and the contribution that each person can offer. Multiculturalism recognizes that we all are unique, and in order to be treated fairly, we need to accommodate each person/ group’s differences and celebrate them (Katz). Thus, integrating multiculturalism into both the educational, and moral lessons we teach our children, is extremely beneficial in decreasing ignorance about other cultures, from a young age, which will ultimately make the world a more tolerant place.

In addition, to educating our children about hate crimes, we must educate society as a whole about recognizing and combating hate crimes. One of the main methods to do this, is increasing communication between the two parties. The most successful method of education is communication; communication between teachers and students in the form of lectures, email, and face-to-face conversations, have proven to be extremely effective, thus the same should be true between conflicting sides of hate crimes. The main source of these hate crimes are through social media, where trolls call each other names. However if we as a society were to promote and normalize communication between opposing parties, it could have substantial consequences to decrease intolerance and increase understanding. When a couple goes for marriage counseling, the therapist does not try to place the parties against one another, rather they try to facilitate a civil conversation between the couple. Likewise, we need to educate one another on each of our viewpoints in order to decrease intolerance, which seems to flood social media pages this way (Katz). Education equals communication. We need to work together as one to increase education about hate crimes on all levels, in order to expand communication among all ages, and eventually decrease hate crimes by promoting tolerance.

Given the complexity of hate crimes, there are numerous points of views on the issue, and likewise there are many opposing opinions on a solution, which are important to consider, while discussing the potential solutions. While it is extremely important to provide students with an unbiased education on hate crimes, achieving this goal is going to be quite difficult for two reasons. First of all, providing someone with an unbiased opinion is very difficult to achieve, because people, no matter how hard they try, instinctively add their opinion, whether verbally or in the form of facial expressions, when speaking about a controversial topic. Thus, ensuring that students receive an unbiased education can be difficult. Secondly, paying for teachers to receive additional training on how to successfully teach about what constitutes hate crimes, and about different minorities, will be associated with a financial cost, which might irritate some taxpayers, who believe that their taxes are already too high.

Another step that needs to be taken in order to decrease hate crimes across the United States, is to make society as a whole more aware of the factors which contribute to hate crimes. In the past, there have been flyers, about “See Something, Say Something.” However, I think it is time that we take this one step further, and teach society about recognizing signs of hate crimes, through understanding the psychological factors behind them. While many people may believe that the perpetrators behind hate crimes have a mental illness diagnosis, like schizophrenia or manic depression, they actually do not all share this quality, rather they all have some sort of antisocial behavior. According to Edward Dunbard, PhD, a psychologist from University of California, Los Angeles “These people are not psychotic, but they’re consistently very troubled, very disturbed, very problematic members of our community who pose a huge risk for future violence” (DeAngelis). Dunbar adds that a lot of these offenders have a history of high parental/caregiver abuse and/or use of violence to solve issues. This fact demonstrates that one of the main sources of violence seen by hate crime offenders is from their upbringing.

According to Erik Erikson, who developed the Stages of Human Development, in the first stage when a child is an infant, they develop feelings of trust or mistrust, depending on how the parents treat them. For example, if a child were to cry for help and the parent were to ignore them, then they would develop feelings of mistrust, which will characterize their behavior for the rest of their lives (Katz). Therefore, due to the parents/caregivers of these hate crime offenders causing their children to develop feelings of mistrust, it results in them having severe emotional trauma, leading to them presenting hostile behavior in the future. Thus, psychologists have concluded that “people who have had painful experiences, and no opportunities to heal, tend to be more hostile in general, and they more easily channel their hostility toward groups the society is also against” (DeAngelis).

For example, according to The National Association of School Psychologists, about 60,000 children miss school everyday due to the fear of being bullied. Bullying not only is painful for the victim, but it also puts the bully at risk if/when the victim retaliates. Psychologists have pointed to the fact that many victims of bullying bring a gun to school as a form of protection, or for pay back. Psychologists further suggest that “bullying is a precursor to stable antisocial and aggressive behavior that may endure into later adolescence and adulthood” (Rabrenovic). Thus, when children are bullied it can have substantial consequences. There have been many campaigns which attempt to stop bullying, but it is also imperative to mention the future psychological and social consequences that bullying can potentially have on these children, and ultimately society. Therefore, we must continue to try our best to recognize and combat bullying in schools, on all levels. This is important in making sure that children do not begin to categorize groups of people, which can develop into aggressive/hostile behavior towards groups of people, ultimately leading to hate crimes occurring.

In addition, psychologists, like Clark McCauley, PhD, professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr College, and co-director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania, have said that the less someone knows about an outgroup, the less likely one is to recognize them as an individual. This causes people to be more willing to ignore information about the individual, and lump them into a single disliked category. Also, if someone does not know much about a group of people, they are far more likely to falsely characterize a whole group of people based on one person’s innate temperament, which is unique to each person. Thus, this not only demonstrates the importance of education (as previously stated), but it also shows that there are numerous psychological factors that we must be aware of, in order to thoroughly combat hate crimes (DeAngelis).

Given the many psychological factors which are attributed to hate crimes, it is imperative that we as a society learn how to recognize these signs, and provide sufficient treatment to individuals who require it. While hate crimes are mainly a result of bias towards a group of people, there are some psychological factors involved, that if addressed, could substantially decrease hate crimes across the United States. For example, providing care for individuals who have endured any type of trauma is extremely important, since it will allow them to properly process the emotions they are feeling, which will help decrease hostility in individuals. Therefore, making psychological care more accessible to everyone, no matter their financial status, or age, is very important in helping decrease feelings of hostility, which are developed at a young age, which will prevent these feelings translating into hate crimes.

However, when discussing the implementation of providing those who need it with psychological care, it is important to look at the opposing point of view. Providing psychological care to those at risk, would have many benefits, but it would also require care provided from the state. In order to ensure that money does not stop someone from receiving psychological care, taxpayer money would need to be utilized to fund the psychological treatments and pay the psychologists, which might anger some taxpayers. Likewise, when it comes to teaching, and addressing psychological factors of hate crimes, a similar issue arises. In order to educate people about the psychological factors linked with hate crimes, it would be necessary to appoint or hire experts in the field, and produce courses, advertisements, and literature on hate crimes, which would come with a cost. Yet, despite the possible conflicts, it is extremely important to teach people how to recognize the psychological influences of hate crimes, in order to potentially decrease them, while also helping the psychological state of those who need it the most at the same time.

The final portion of my proposal, to decrease hate crimes across the United States, is enforcing stricter gun laws. Gun laws have been a controversial topic for decades, given its status in the United States Constitution, and the differing opinions on the topic. For example, in a survey asking people their opinion on gun laws, an estimated 68 percent favor stricter gun regulatory laws on handguns, which are the firearm mostly commonly used in crimes. Six percent said that they wanted more lenient gun laws, and 25 percent said that they were content with the current gun laws (Gribbin). This demonstrates the diversity in opinions on gun control, and given that this is a survey from 1999, the opinions on this issue are currently most likely far more diverse.

I am by no means trying to eliminate the right to bear arms, because it is a constitutional right. However, some people may feel that it is an infringement on their second amendment right, by requiring more background checks, and enforcing stricter laws on who can acquire a gun. However, my proposal attempts to make sure that only people who are in the correct mental state can acquire firearms, which the majority of gun carriers are. My proposal stresses that we need to make sure that guns are not abused, and are used properly, which is true for most gun carriers. However, there is a select group of people who do have access to firearms, who are not in the correct mental state to do so, which has major consequences; and this is the issue which needs to be addressed. According to the same study from 1999, “by 64 percent to 34 percent, people overwhelmingly reject the notion of banning ‘possession of handguns except by police and other authorized persons’” (Gribbin). This perfectly demonstrates that the general public, including law makers, do not want to get rid of the access to firearms to the general public. While this fact may seem obvious, it is important to make note of this, in order to make sure that when new gun law proposals are discussed, the removal of guns is not on the agenda, rather the regulation of gun distribution is.

There have been many previous attempts to create gun control legislation after major hate crimes have occurred, like after the shooting in El Paso, and the San Diego Synagogue shooting no legislation has been passed. When members of both political parties have mentioned proposals relating to gun laws, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell said that he would not schedule any votes on gun control proposals unless the White House says that the President will endorse them, Clay Ramsay, a researcher at University of Maryland says. Not having the unbiased support of the President to attempt to make these changes, to make the United States a safer place, is one of the many reasons why the gun control legislature has failed to be passed. Major companies like Airbnb, Twitter, and Uber, along with many others, have attempted to show Congress the prevalence of this issue, by directly writing a letter to Congress.

Doing nothing about America’s gun violence crisis is simply unacceptable and it is time to stand with the American public on gun safety,” read the letter signed by the heads of 145 U.S. companies, including Airbnb, Twitter and Uber. (Raging Gun Violence)

More specifically, these companies were asking the Senate to pass a bill which would require more background checks on all gun sales, in order to ensure that guns did not fall in the wrong hands. However, that has not stopped Congress people from attempting to facilitate this change. The Red flag bill, which Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal have been working on, is one possible solution to the issue that Airbnb, Twitter and Uber were discussing. The red flag bill would allow for guns to be confiscated from people who have sufficient evidence pointing to the possibility that they would attack someone or have mental health problems. This bill would solve the issue that has been on the minds of so many people; guns would be in the hands of those who should have them, and out of the ones who pose a possible danger to society. While this law would not prevent illegal ownership, or purchases of guns, it would prevent the mentally ill from acquiring guns, and convicted violent felons from purchasing and/or possessing a gun, which is a step in the right direction.

Despite having many gun proposals in place, no substantial gun control law has been passed, however there is more we can do in order to ensure that people, who should not have access to guns, do not legally acquire them. Jon R. Taylor, a political science professor and department chair at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said that we need to have civilized and unbiased conversations on safe gun use, and ownership in the United States, which is very difficult to have given the political division over the issue (Raging Gun Violence). Not only is facilitating these discussions important, but also utilizing our First Amendment right to lobby is vital. Showing members of Congress that restricting access to guns for those who are not mentally stable enough to use them is important in making sure that Congress can see that this is an issue the public cares about. Additionally, stressing that this is a bipartisan issue is also extremely important. Given the political division around gun control, recognizing that this is a bipartisan issue, whose goal is to prevent hate crimes from occuring in any way possible, is extremely important to stress, given the current political climate. Therefore, we need to work together as a society to ensure that people in an unstable mental state are unable to access guns in order to ensure that the weapons used in hate crimes are more difficult to obtain; ultimately helping to decrease hate crimes from occuring, due to hostile individuals having access to weapons.

On October 25, 2018, the largest ever anti-semitic attack took place at The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This shooting left eleven people dead, and several more were injured. Before the shooting 46 year old Robert Bowers posted on the social media site Gab, which houses a large sum of white-supremists and racists posts, “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered… screw your optics, I’m going in’’ (Andone). Prior to that post, Bowers had posted many other anti-semitic posts, saying that Jews were invaders, and that they were helping bring caravans into the country. Rober Bowers, was said to have had a childhood filled with trauma, like the suicide of his birth father when he was seven, and the conviction of his step father for molesting young girls (Lord). After the shooter was transported to a hospital, the police found a rifle, and three hand guns on the scene.

This shooting was quickly classified as a hate crime that left not only the community in Pittsburgh in distress, but also Jewish communities around the world were left questioning their safety (Andone). When looking at the events leading up to this horrific event, implementing portions of my proposal, could have possibly deterred this event from occurring. Given the fact that a lot of the people who commit hate crimes had some sort of psychological trauma, the trauma that Bowers endured at such a young age could be an important factor when looking at ways this hate crime could have been prevented. If Bowers had received proper psychological care when he was younger, there is a great possibility that it could have prevented the hostile behavior that he exhibited later in life. Additionally, Bowers had a great deal of hostility towards the Jewish community, and government because he followed many people on social media with a very misinformed and biased view towards these groups. Therefore, had Bowers been taught properly about these groups of people, maybe he would not have developed hostility towards them. Lastly, it is clear that Bowers was not in the correct mental state to have possessed four deadly weapons on him. Therefore, had there been stricter background checks when he purchased the guns, maybe Bowers would not have been able to carry out the hate crime. While, it is not one hundred percent for certain, given the events leading up to the hate crime, and Robert Bowers’ background, implementing parts of my proposal could be extremely helpful from stopping hate crimes, like the Tree of Life shooting from occurring.

In conclusion, when looking at the hate crimes that fill the headlines, and news today, it is time that we stand up, and end the toxic cycle that has hurt so many people world wide. While people claim that it is 2020, and we are now much more progressive, there are still thousands of hate crimes that take place each year simply because of someone’s race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or disability. It is time that we take action and try to stop these vicious hate crimes from occuring. By implementing a history of hate crimes, and different cultural groups into student’s core curriculum nationwide, it will allow for students to have an unbiased education on different communities, and learn about the suffering many religions and races have endured. Thus preventing our children from being misinformed due to the lack of education on different races and religions. Secondly, by educating society on the different psychological factors linked with hate crimes, it will allow people to understand, and prevent hate crimes before they have a chance to occur, which will not only result in a more educated society, but also a safer one. Also, by providing psychological care to those at risk, without a price tag involved, it will prevent hostility from developing in individuals at risk, which will result in a much safer and a more stable future generation. Lastly, if structured gun laws are implemented, it will ensure that only people who are capable of bearing arms do, and those who are not mentally stable enough to have a gun, do not acquire one. While combating hate crimes is not an easy task given the complexity of the issue, addressing each of these issues one step at a time, will make for a much more tolerant, and safer world for ourselves and generations to come.