Edited sentence: A bias-motivated offense can cause a broad ripple of discomfiture among members of a targeted group, and a violent hate crime can act like a virus, quickly spreading feelings of terror and loathing across an entire community.Apart from their psychological impacts, violent hate crimes can create tides of retaliation and counterretaliation.For example, during 1993 in the United States, 11 of the 24,526 murders reported in the United States were classified as hate crimes, as were 13 of the 104,806 reported rapes.However, hate crimes are considered to victimize not only the immediate target but every member of the group that the immediate target represents.Many factors may create a climate in which people, motivated by their biases, take criminal action.Once a climate of hate is created, a single incident—such as the videotaped beating of Los Angeles, California, motorist Rodney King—can trigger a wave of hate crimes.Such factors include poor or uncertain economic conditions, racial stereotypes in films and on television, hate-filled discourse on talk shows or in political advertisements, the use of racial code language such as “welfare mothers” and “inner city thugs,” and an individual’s personal experiences with members of particular minority groups.The number of hate crimes may seem small when compared with the incidence of other types of crimes.Therefore, criminal acts motivated by bias may carry far more weight than other types of criminal acts