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In today's world, most of us live in a city, town or community that contains a unique, culturally diverse population. Residents represent a broad spectrum of nearly every culture, nationality, race and religion on this earth. This diversity has significantly contributed to making the United States a vibrant and dynamic place to live.
Unfortunately, not everyone thinks this way. There are peopl;e and groups who would attack our heritage by comitting crimes and acts that target members of a specific group. These crimes are knoiwn as "hate crimes" and "hate incidents".
Hate Crimes
A hate crime is any criminal act or attempted criminal act directed against a person or persons based on the victim's actual or perceived race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender.
Some examples of hate crimes include:
Acts which result in injury, even if then injury is slight. Threats of violence that look like they can be carried out. Acts which result in property damage. Any criminal act or attempted criminal act, including propery damage, directed against a public or provate agency.
Hate Incidents
Hate incidents are similar to hate crimes in that the act is directed against a person or persons based on the victim's actual or perceived race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender. The basic difference between a hate incident d a hate crime is that a hate incident is a non-criminal act.
Examples of a hate incident might include:
Circulating offensive material such as hate flyers stuffed in mailboxes or thrown ona person's lawn. Posting hate materials that does not result in propery damage such as demeaning caricatures depicting a racial, ethnic or religious group. Displaying hate graffiti in public places which is not directed against a specific target such as an epithet on a vacant building or on a freeway overpass.
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