Definition of a hate crime

Im doing research at the moment on hate crime as part of overall research for the SGMHP and it came to the point of how am i going to back up my version of a hate crime so i did a few searches to see if any would back me up!

Ill give my version first

For the purpose of this survey a hate crime is any physical or verbal attack; where the victim is primarily targeted because of his or her perceived sexual orientation.

(Spillane, S 2007, to be published)

and i found the following definitions for hate crime:

n. A crime motivated by prejudice against a social group: "[His]murders were hate crimes targeting victims by gender" (Jane Caputi and Diana E.H. Russell).

American Heritage Dictionary Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

and

Function: noun
: a crime that violates the victim's civil rights and that is motivated by hostility to the victim's race, religion, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Source


I'd say im going to go for the second on as it actually mentions sexual orientation, which is the main cause of the hate crime that I am researching.

For more details on the research email me spiller2 (at) gmail (dot) com and ill be putting out a call for interviews shortly once i hear from my research supervisor.