Hate Crime on College Campuses

            Hate crimes are the cause of many social gatherings in society so why are they still happening. A lot of attention is given to these types of crimes yet they occur all the time. Although they are committed almost everywhere, they shouldn’t be expected to happen in public places such as college campuses. College is a place where students can freely express themselves in a safe environment but some are taking that away from them.  This is an issue that needs to be understood as to why certain people are targeted and what can be done to stop the perpetrators.

            It is important to know what goes on in the person’s mind while committing a crime. There must be a broader aspect rather than their victim was just African American or they were women. According to Los Angeles psychologist Edward Dunbar, those who commit hate crimes do not have any mental or psychotic illnesses. Offenders are consistently very troubled and have an abusive childhood. Dunbar found that offenders attack people because of their antisocial behavior and their hate against those who might be better than them.

            Statistics collected from the FBI in 2007 show that nearly 13 percent of hate crimes were committed in schools and college campuses. Because these places have a large diverse society, offenders see this as an easy target to find people who express themselves differently from them. For instance when a student was attacked on DePaul University’s campus, he was an easy target being attacked by student’s who knew who he was and knew of his sexual orientation. This one incident, however, is a need for a safer environment for students. This attack happened on a school campus where it is expected to be a safe so when will it really be a safe environment?

            Many college campuses have dramatically increased their security resources among their campuses such as campus escorts and emergency phones on every corner. All this may help decrease violence but it will never eliminate it. People need to do all they can to help make school campuses a safer place. Being highly against hate crimes, I don’t see how people can hurt or kill others based on things that have nothing to do with the offender.  It is sickening to see that someone has been killed because they were a certain religion or spoke a different language.