e moralist and consequently more liberal. Prior to researching hate crime policy, we took into consideration the previous research and its correlation to Elazar’s political cultures. From this, we hypothesized that MPC regions of the United States would be most responsible for initiating anti-hate crime legislation and action and would, in general, be more likely to have hate crime policies than the IPC and TPC regions. We felt that there would a much greater tendency to follow suit in regard to federal initiatives. My reasoning for this was simply the commonwealth idea that influences the politics and way of life in the MPC. The MPC is a liberal area with the people’s interests at heart. The people are encouraged to participate and voice their concerns. It was the MPC that supported similar ideas during and after the Civil War. The MPC was a staunch supporter of civil rights and rights for women in addition to our actions in the Cold War. We felt that the IPC would, similar to many other policy arenas, come in second in regard to hate crime policy. The IPC would not be as likely as the MPC to have existing policies or to be an initiator of such policy, but still to a much greater extent than the TPC. Our reasoning for the agenda of this political culture, which many times has been considered a “gray area” is due to the use of the political system to further individual interests. This concept can be, at times, hard to apply because the IPC falls somewhere in the middle of the political cultures spectrum. Looking at statistics, compiled for 1999, alone can give quite an indication of the degree that states have prioritized hate crimes on their agendas. As previously mentioned, the first hate crime statute was enacted by California in 1978, so naturally hate crime policies are a product of the previous two decades. According to spastics compiled by the FBI and Anti-Defamation League, it is evident that...
