The Differential Association Theory.
A study of Hate Crimes involving children and how they are influenced by their parents and peers. A summary of Sutherlands, Differential Association theory is included to explain this study. Several journals and resources were used to explain and define Hate Crimes and the Differential Association Theory. Included in this study are statistics form the National Crime Reports and information from experiments on peer and parental influence on children. The results of these experiments imply that strong family and peer influence at an early age is the backbone of a child's beliefs. .
Hate Crimes Involving Children and the Differential Association Theory.
A hate crime is any bias motivated criminal incident committed against an individual or group because of their race, sex, ethnicity, disability, and/or beliefs. In most cases, hate crimes are committed by the majority against the minority. Hate crimes range from vandalism or defacing property to rape or homicide, but in every case, someone gets hurt. According to the National Crime Reports in 1998, a total of 7,755 bias motivated criminal incidents were reported to the FBI from police and sheriff departments throughout the United States. Of these incidents, 4,321 of them were motivated by racial bias, 1,390 were religious bias, 1,260 were by sexual orientation, 754 were by ethnicity or national origin, 25 were by disability, and 5 were of multiple bias (NCJRS, 1998). This means that over 50% of all hate crimes are motivated by racial bias, and of these racially motivated crimes, more than 50% of them are against blacks. Unfortunately, though these crimes are reported they usually go unsolved do to the to the fact that most of these crimes are committed by random offenders. In most cases, the victim has had no prior association with the offender; therefore law enforcement agencies have little to no assistance in solving the crime.