aration for the new century, it is time for us to mount an all-out assault on hate crimes, to punish them swiftly and severely, and to do more to prevent them from happening in the first place. We must begin with a deeper understanding of the problem itself.” -President Bill Clinton June 7, 1997.Supporters of hate crime legislation say that enacting a hate crimes sentence enhancing act would not be anything that the federal government hasn’t already had practice in dealing with because of the standing 18 U.S.C. 245-- which protects all from being inhibited to proceed in a federally protected right. Supporters also say that the federal government should have a responsibility to ensure that no citizen is subject to this type of treatment because of a prejudice. (Human Rights Campaign).Personally, I do not believe in hate crime legislation. I believe that such legislation and sentencing enhancements add more merit to one person’s life than that of another. For a person in a specified group, that is killed, to have more action laid on the perpetrator send the wrong message to society. We need to put out efforts into condemning murders of all human beings, not merely a selected group of people. I believe by imposing a rule such as a sentencing enhancement act, we allow the government to place a standard in the importance of one life versus another. I do however; believe that the monitoring of “hate crimes” and the recording of such data could be useful to some. The Hate Crime Statistics Act requires studies pertaining to hate crime to be documented an annual basis. Different patterns that occur in certain regions and areas are looked at in more depth now because of these studies. I believe this has a legitimate purpose, and can provided insight for newcomers to the area, and a look in one’s own “backyard.” Nevertheless, I stand strong in the notion that “all men are created eq...
