Essay Sample on Hate Crime on Campus

Introduction

Colleges and university campuses should be a haven for students, faculty and staff alike to explore their full academic and social potential. The prevalence of crimes on the campuses, however, makes this very difficult. Hate and bias crimes are common in most colleges and universities. The challenge comes in when the incidents are not reported to the authorities that are meant to deal with them. The main reason as to why the crimes are not reported is because the crimes are mainly against minority groups and women who are afraid to contact the relevant authorities. Fear of further discrimination and a lack of knowledge are the main reasons as to why many of the hate and bias crimes are not reported and hence difficultly in collecting accurate statistics on the issue. These crimes create an atmosphere of fear, and the occupants of campuses are unable to concentrate on their academic work as should be the case. There need to be more actions taken to address the incidences of hate and bias crimes on campus.

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Most of the crimes on campus come about as a result of sexual orientation, race, gender, and origin. Race is by far the leading cause of discrimination and crimes in campuses. In most of the cases reported, there were cases of threatening words and even physical violence against students of particular ethnicities such as Asians and African Americans. Some students had their property destroyed, and others had threatening messages left on their phones and answering machines. Sexual orientation was also a significant contributor to hate and bias crimes in a campus. Gays and lesbians were victims of verbal messages, graffiti and even physical violence on their campuses.

With the number of cases that have been reported, there is still concern that there are many more that are not indicated for various reasons. Some of these include the fact that the victims are afraid to report. This encourages the perpetrators of the crimes, and they are likely to escalate into stronger words or violent actions. The second challenge is that campus police to whom the crimes are reported to are not well trained to handle the cases necessitating training problems - the fact that most cases are not reported also makes it difficult for the police to carry out investigations and charge the criminals. There should be clear guidelines on the channels of reporting of such crimes. Another problem occurs when the police do not report crimes to campus administration, making it difficult to put preventive measures in place.

Conclusion

The most important way of dealing with the problem of hate and bias crimes is the creation of awareness so that all campus members know how to identify such crimes and whom to report to. The Anti-Defamation League is an integral part of this. The education of students on peer diversity will also make students more appreciative of students who may different from them regarding gender, race, sexual orientation or religious beliefs. My opinion on the matter is that there are far more cases of hate and bias crimes in campuses and the steps discussed above should be stepped up. Colleges and universities should be safe places where students and faculty can live and work freely while at the same time experiencing and appreciating the diversity among them.