History Of Hate Crime

A hate crime is defined as any wrong doing perpetrated against a particular group of people. It is a form of prejudice that could be directed at a collection of individuals based on their ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, gender, religious preference or any other defining characteristic. Anytime two different groups of people come in contact with each other, there is a possibility of tension or conflict, and it often leads to violence. Whether the crime in question is assault, theft, verbal abuse or even murder, the motivation behind it is based on hatred for a people who are perceived as being different in some way.

The origin of hate crimes dates back to ancient civilizations. One of the earliest examples is found in the Roman Empire, which was well known for persecuting various religious groups. According to several historical documents, Christianity was largely tolerated by then Emperor Nero until the year 64 AD when a tremendous fire destroyed a great portion of Rome. The Emperor felt he was being blamed for the damage, so he shifted the guilt to Christians and called for anyone who followed the religion to be punished. This led to years of hate crimes against anyone who followed the beliefs of Christianity and several other religious groups.

Some examples of hate crime have been so tremendous that they have affected the entire world. One of the most notable is the persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazis. Hitler's "Final Solution" called for the total annihilation of the Jews and led to the building of full scale death camps. This dark period in world history is better known as The Holocaust, and was responsible the mass murder of thousands of people. In more recent years, the act of genocide or attempting to obliterate an entire ethnic, racial or religious group has taken place in both Bosnia and Rwanda.

Hate crimes occur on a smaller scale all over the world. They are often based on prejudices based on the color of a person's skin or their sexual orientation. In the United States the majority of hate crimes were committed against people because of their race. The crimes primarily consist of intimidation, vandalism and assault. Statistics provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation have shown that hate crimes are on the rise in America. In 2006 the number of crimes had increased by 8% from the year before. These sad facts show that despite how far we have advanced in many ways, hate crimes are far from being nothing more than ancient history.

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