As the report declares due to rapid globalization, the demographics of the various areas of the world are rapidly changing and it is therefore common for local residents of a region to compete for resources with newly arriving foreigners originating from other parts of the world. Besides this competition, other factors like political interests or religious differences also contribute to enhancing hatred among different groups of an area, which ultimately translates into occurrence of crimes.
This paper stresses that among the various types of crimes, hate crimes hold a special position due to the fact that violence or anger in this case is motivated by ethnic, linguistic, nationality, racial, color, sexual orientation or other prejudices. The basic difference between hate crimes and regular crimes relates to the motive of crime. Also referred to as bias-motivated delinquency, the violence inflicted upon a victim in this type of crime is often due to a perpetrators perception of belonging to a social, religious or other group, that has conflicting views or beliefs in comparison to those of the victim’s. Hate crimes may range from mild forms like hate mails, insults or graffiti to more offensive forms like assault, harassment, property destruction or damage and bullying. The nature of hate crimes is unique keeping in view the fact that the consequences of such crimes are not limited to only a few targeted individuals, but are felt in a larger social context by a large number of individuals.